Summary of Selected Business or Organization
ARC Group Worldwide, Inc., founded in 1987, is a global advanced manufacturing service provider focused on quality, innovation, and production speed. Whenever possible, ARC Group Worldwide seeks to positively impact traditional manufacturing by utilizing various advanced manufacturing technologies and capabilities available within the organization. Using a wide range of advanced manufacturing technologies and over 200 certifications in operations, ARC Group Worldwide is performing promptly, reducing the overall cost and time to market for their customers.
Size and Market
ARC Group Worldwide is large enough to fill large contracts, while smaller customers need ARC’s unique mix-manufacturing capabilities. ARCW is a global organization. The largest market segment is in the ethnic Americas. Several large contract manufacturers have participated with ARC group worldwide in joint product development activities. Market growth is expected in the aerospace, automotive, energy, and healthcare end-user industries. While most of the North American automotive big four are customers of ARC Group for various operations, Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford are the largest in revenue. ARC Group Worldwide has extensive capabilities in metal injection moulding but offers numerous additional manufacturing capabilities, including metalizing, metal stamping, prototyping, advanced tooling, automation, machining, plastic injection moulding, lean manufacturing, robotics, and 3D printing. The certified rosters for some of these capabilities are extensive.
Production and Distribution
ARC manufacturing components for delivery in product form is nothing new. The advanced manufacturing capabilities and service offerings “stacks” assembled over nearly three decades by the forward-thinking ARC Group Worldwide staff have significantly expanded the technology portfolio and company facility locations where arc manufacturing capabilities can be utilized to deliver products. One of the company’s most extensive value-added services is the research and development of new manufacturing technologies.
Marketing
ARC’s marketing energies are primarily dedicated to promoting the advanced manufacturing capabilities provided to customers as a service. Innovation and technology are a requirement for an arc group worldwide manufacturing 3D, plastic injection moulding, metal injection moulding, robotics, or advanced tooling. The ability to promote a reputation as an innovative and technology-centred manufacturing and production solution provider is one of the critical objectives of ARC Group Worldwide in the marketplace.
Potential Risks
Machine and Process Failures: The process of manufacturing that is the primary business of ARC Group Worldwide can be subject to material machine systems or overall process failures, which may be traced back to several sources, including staffing, training, equipment, or the manufacturing process itself. Other operational risks include machine downtime eliminated by deploying predictive maintenance technologies. Then there is the quality of the products, such as defects that result in customer dissatisfaction or worse, supply chain innovation failure such that core raw materials were unavailable for several months, or costs rising are so significant that competitors can offer more attractive pricing.
Market Competition: There is a robust competition force in ARC Group Worldwide’s market. The rapidity at which new technologies make their way into new products or manufacturing processes, such as engineering, design, prototyping, machining, plastics and automation systems, is a stark reality for ARC Group Worldwide (D’Aveni, 2018). The number of new companies starting up and flooding the market, particularly regarding their core competencies areas, increases competition across various industry segments.
Protection of Intellectual Property (IP): ARC Group Worldwide relies, at least in part, on a proprietary method or process to design metal injection moulded parts. If this proprietary capability were to be made public, it could have a tremendous negative financial impact on ARC Group.
Cyber Security: as a technology-enabled company, ARC Group’s cyber security program could be a source of significant vulnerability to anyone trying to penetrate their manufacturing operations and customer and supplier information.
Reputation: Should something arise with a product made by ARC Group that caused it to fail or could cause injury to a product user, that could have lasting and severe impacts on ARC Group Worldwide.
Disruptions to the Supply Chain: ARC Group is at high risk of a supply chain disruption due to a natural event (e.g., earthquake), an international event (e.g., geopolitical tensions) or other kinds of events.
Risk Management Tools
ARC Group Worldwide can use the following risk management tools and techniques:
Risk Assessment: Conduct frequent risk assessments throughout the organization to detect possible risks and weaknesses. This involves assessing market risks, interruptions in supply chains, legislative changes, and technological threats.
SWOT Analysis: Conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to evaluate the company’s internal and external strengths and weaknesses. This aids in developing plans to capitalize on strengths and mitigate deficiencies.
Framework for Enterprise Risk Management (ERM): Implement an ERM framework that connects risk management to strategic goals. This includes setting risk tolerance thresholds, allocating duties, and monitoring risks at all organizational levels.
Scenario Planning: Create scenarios to predict probable hazards and their impact on the business. This enables ARC Group Worldwide to plan ahead of time for many outcomes.
Insurance: Examine the company’s insurance coverage to verify that it effectively handles risks such as product liability, intellectual property issues, and business interruption.
Supply Chain Risk Management: Given the different industrial activities of ARC Group Worldwide, creating a solid supply chain risk management program is critical. Diversifying suppliers, monitoring supplier performance, and having contingency plans are all part of this.
Regulatory and Compliance Oversight: Keep up to speed on industry rules and compliance needs, especially in areas with rigorous standards such as aerospace and healthcare. Ensure that the firm follows all applicable legislation and requirements.
Invest in solid cybersecurity safeguards to secure sensitive data, intellectual property, and consumer information. To protect against cyber-attacks, security methods should be updated and tested regularly.
Financial Risk Management: Keep a healthy balance sheet, diversify investments, and hedge against currency swings, primarily if the firm works abroad.
Develop a detailed crisis management strategy outlining how the organization will respond to natural catastrophes, product recalls, or reputational issues.
Establish a framework for continual risk monitoring and reporting to ensure the organization can adjust to changing conditions and make educated decisions.
ARC Group Worldwide may proactively identify, analyze, and reduce risks by applying these risk management tools and techniques, thereby increasing company resilience and competitiveness in the manufacturing and 3D printing industries.
Risk Management Recommendations
Equipment downtime should be reduced by deploying predictive maintenance technology on all machines at the facility. ARC’s facility should consider a focus on the most frequent machine failures. According to Chaudhuri, Boer & Taran (2018), there should be a supply chain management system that would have functions that could provide a notification of a supply chain disruption for a given raw material. A company such as ARC can find alternate sources for that raw material. In the market where ARC Worldwide operates, competition is a force to be reckoned with. The company must develop superior products, gain cost advantage, research and development for differentiated products, and invest in its human resources. Restricting authorized access to protect intellectual property is a strong deterrent, and I believe it reduces the probability of security breaches by internal employees. ARC Worldwide employees are under contract upon hire. Still, if the volume of business or the people in the organization are moving laterally or even vertically, there becomes an opportunity to breach the company’s trade secrets. On cyber security, if an increasingly more significant percentage of the system log-ins have been identified from outside in undisclosed or unauthorized locations, then more stringent actions must be taken to correct the breach. To maintain its reputation, ARC Worldwide must have a relatively long-term business relationship with each of its customers. Again, ARC can establish a strategy to identify and rank potential risks faced by different entity divisions and assets relating to the supply chain that can cause disruptions and determine how to manage these risks.
References
Chaudhuri, A., Boer, H., & Taran, Y. (2018). Supply chain integration, risk management and manufacturing flexibility. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 38(3), 690-712.
D’Aveni, R. (2018). The pan-industrial revolution: how new manufacturing titans will transform the world. Houghton Mifflin.
McGrath, R. G. (2013). The end of competitive advantage: How to keep your strategy moving as fast as your business. Harvard Business Review Press.
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