Department - Author 1
Industrial Technology
Degree Name - Author 1
BS in Industrial Technology
Date
6-2010
Primary Advisor
Louis Tornatsky
Abstract/Summary
The task of this project was to perform a cost-benefit analysis of potential manufacturing sites for Warmboard’s new plant. Any time a company decides to open a new factory, lots of research needs to be done before any action is taken. Since this is such a common occurrence in industry, many templates and criteria for evaluation have been used that vary greatly in content and quality. This senior project tries to create Warmboard specific criteria and a way to cross evaluate potential manufacturing sites that is more valuable and relevant to Warmboard’s specific needs. To create this report, a specific list of variables is determined that can be cross evaluated. Those variables are then assigned values to determine their importance relative to Warmboard’s specific wants and needs. A vast list of possible variables was narrowed down, leading to five main categories: business and operating conditions, geographically variable costs, real estate variables, laws and regulatory variables by county, and finally Warmboard specific variables. Each of these categories is broken down into smaller subsections, and is then broken down even further into the individual variables. Once each of these categories is filled out based on the best example location in each city, a satisfaction rating is assigned based on how well each of the variables is satisfied. To narrow down the multitude of potential sites in each area to just one site, a more specific table was used to compare three or four of the most satisfactory sites. When investigating which site would be the most beneficial, all three ideal sites beat out the average sites in Watsonville as well as Watsonville’s highest scoring site. The best site was found to be in South San Francisco, surpassing the average of the Watsonville sites a by 10% Warmboard value. The final recommendation is that Warmboard should seriously consider choosing either South San Francisco for its value, or Gilroy for its low cost. Both sites are more suitable options than any of the potential Watsonville sites.
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/itsp/6