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Lawn King

Lawn King Case Analysis

Lamont Benn

Maryville University
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Lawn King

Case Analysis/Issues

Lawn King is a company which produces lawn mowers of various sizes that range from

18” to 22” decks. Due to increased demand for lawn mowers, the company has seen an

increase in sales. The current shift in demand threw the company off because they were not

prepared for the surge of the market shift. This surge caused the company to have product

shortages and back orders, which cost them money in the long run. In order to keep up with the

booming demand, the company needs to develop a more efficient model that allows then to

address the issue with product shortages. I will address some of the issues that I found from

analyzing this case further in detail.

To begin, a situation that I deemed an issue for the company was during the staff

meeting when James Fairday interrupted and questioned the increase of predicted sales for the

upcoming fiscal year. By hearing the increase by 12%, it made him feel uncomfortable about

where the company was going, as well as showed he has doubt in the company. While he made

his comments, it could have given others in the room the same feeling when they may not have

thought so to begin with. However, Kathy, handled the situation accordingly and addressed that

the company needed to be responsive to changing market conditions; which was the correct

way to handle the situation.

Another issue I found was that due to back orders, some of the company’s best

customers began to complain about not having the product they needed during peak selling

season; some threatening to drop the Lawn King product line. How do you fix this issue? It’s not

easy, but you have to win back the trust of the customers and ensure them that you are

working on a solution to this problem. I suggest adding another shift to accommodate the
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Lawn King

future trends that are expected to happen. This may cost the company more money to make

this happen, but if sales are expected to increase, the company will make more in profit. Not to

mention with supplies constantly coming into the plant, it will give them more manpower to

assemble the parts to where they would not have excess inventory sitting around.

The last issue I will address deals with the company’s high turnover. With the high

turnover the company experience, some felt the job was repetitive and boring. Fixing this could

eliminate the high turnover. Suggest that Lawn King management do a weekly rotation around

the plant for the line workers; this would not accommodate the machinist due to the fact they

have no choice but to do the same thing daily. However, doing this will allow the line workers

to work on something different each week while eliminating the repetitive feeling that some

are expressing. I do like the solution of hiring the “fillers” though. Due to the absenteeism, it

gives the company some help on the production line when workers are absent.

Case Questions

I have also attached the spreadsheet from the assignment, showing the forecast for the

2011 fiscal year. My analysis from looking at Lawn King’s current strategy, and from comparing

it to the level, chase and linear strategies, I suggest that Lawn King look into using a level

workforce strategy. The reason being, if they choose to use this strategy, it would give the

company the ability to employ a consistent number of workers throughout the entire year without

having to hire or fire a significant amount of people. This plays a huge role in hiring and firing

costs which make a big difference in how the company views its overall total costs. This

consistent number of employees also helps to reduce the number of people who need to work

overtime. When it comes to total costs, cutting back on hiring, firing, and overtime costs make a
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Lawn King

huge difference in total cost. With this change in costs, it will allow the company to operate more

efficiently while elevating their level of production.