WWYD Louis Vuitton a Multinational Company Based in France, Louis

question 4

Multiple Choice

WWYD Louis Vuitton A multinational company based in France, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) is the world's leading luxury goods company. Louis Vuitton started his company in 1854 and revolutionized travel by selling trunks and luggage designed for easier stowage on board trains and steamships. Today the company is comprised of the highest-end luxury brands in fashion, jewelry, perfume, cosmetics, shoes, wine, and spirits. Over the last decade, the worldwide luxury market has doubled to $220 billion a year, with much of that growth coming from China, where "1.4 billion people … suddenly want to treat themselves, and it will continue." Growth like that creates a number of challenges for companies like Louis Vuitton. First, it can't run out of the most popular products, but it must have the flexibility to produce small batches (limited editions) of a large number of different luxury goods. Second, because workers complete just one task, it generally takes 30 craftsmen eight days to produce just one Louis Vuitton bag. Production bottlenecks are common. The company wants and needs to restructure its production process to add more capacity without building any more factories.
Louis Vuitton generally releases one new bag a season, or four per year. Because its factories were working on long-term production schedules for its most popular products, they lacked the ability to scale up production if a bag suddenly became popular. In other words, they weren't flexible. This also meant that they were hitting production ceilings where, under their old system, their 17 factories weren't capable of producing more goods without building more factories. As a result, Louis Vuitton experienced frequent stockouts where it could not stock its store shelves.
One improvement came from using robots to move unfinished inventory throughout the factory and thereby get rid of waiting time and production bottlenecks. For example, in its Italian shoe factory, Louis Vuitton uses robots to retrieve the foot molds around which workers make shoes. Now, instead of having craftspeople retrieve a shoe mold every time they're ready to begin a new job, the robots bring the molds to the workers. CEO Yves Carcelle says the robots have yielded "considerable" time savings. As a result, instead of shipping a new bag every three months, it is now every six weeks. Patrick-Louis Vuitton, in charge of special orders, says, "It's about finding the best ratio between quality and speed."
Another improvement involved switching to teams of 6 to 12 workers and who learned to complete multiple production steps. So, instead of having three workers separately handle gluing, stitching, and finishing the edges of a flap, one worker would do all three steps. And, by placing those teams in U-shaped clusters, Louis Vuitton was able to free up 10 percent more space in its existing factories. Because of that, says CEO Yves Carcelle, "We were able to hire 300 new people without adding a factory." The U-shaped workstations also positioned sewing machines and assembly tables so that team members could pass bags back and forth without waiting. That, combined with having workers perform multiple production steps, eliminated production bottlenecks. Refer to WWYD Louis Vuitton. Because Louis Vuitton is interested in adding more capacity without building additional factories, it is most likely the company is interested in increasing:

• A)partial productivity
• B)labor productivity
• C)multifactor productivity
• D)throughput
• E)inventory

Explore different outcomes of interventions and the importance of addressing termination in social worker-client relationships.

Understand the concept and components of working capital.

Calculate and analyze the cost of various forms of financing working capital.

Evaluate the benefits and costs of inventory management techniques.

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Definitions:

Shared

Shared, in the context of organizational behavior, refers to resources, responsibilities, or ideas that are collectively used, borne, or developed by a group of people.

Empowering Leadership

Empowering leadership refers to a style where leaders encourage, enable, and motivate employees to take initiative and make decisions in their roles.

Customer Feelings

The emotions and perceptions experienced by customers during or after interacting with a company's products or services.

Managerial Activities

Tasks or operations that involve planning, organizing, leading, and controlling within an organization.