Need help for identifying dispatching problems by identifying the root causes and a reasonable solution

Scenario:

You have been promoted to senior analyst in the Distribution
Engineering, Maintenance, and Productions Management group of the
Central Engineering Department of the Canbide Corporation, near
Torrance, CA. At this location is a facility for the electronics
business. Based upon your previous successes in the electronics
division, you will now spend most of your time with the chemical plants.

The Canbide Corporation is a U.S.-based, multi-national, publicly
traded, manufacturing company with annual sales nearing $10 billion.
Canbide is one of the pioneers of the petrochemical industry and is the
acknowledged technology leader in several market sectors, and benefits
from large licensing royalty checks for those technologies. Canbide is
the low cost producer for a number of commodity products. Canbide's
current marketing approach is based on providing a wide selection of
products from a single location, more than any of their competitors.

In a suburb of Tulsa, OK, Canbide operates a facility for the Chemical
Business Group, which contains the Divisional Research and Engineering
Department (DRE), the experts on the specific reactions and equipment
associated with that division's production processes, and the Central
Central Engineering and Research Department (CERG), experts in specific
subjects that cross divisional boundaries. The employees in CERG
generally work as internal consultants for the divisional research and
engineering groups and often work on plant level issues.

Mr. Villani, president of the Chemicals Business Group, is pressing his
divisional VPs to solve several problems. There is internal pressure for
a new distribution facility in the Midwest. There continue to be quality
problems at a facility near Toledo, OH that serves the automotive market
in Michigan. There are customer service problems at most of the
distribution locations, but especially at a facility near Denver, CO.
There are inventory and materials handling problems at the production
facility near Huntsville, AL.

Your supervisor has alerted you to three important projects for the
coming year.

Product Quality and Distribution Problems at the Denver facility: This
facility has experienced slow physical growth since its beginning in the
1930s. Over the years, new production units (measuring 2 km x 1 km) have
been added on the periphery of the facility, in a widely scattered
manner. Unfortunately, your previous recommendations regarding customer
service have not yet been implemented due to budgetary constraints;
customers desiring to pickup multiple products must now drive from point
to point within the plant to pick up each product. There are often
waiting lines at each loading point. This is causing gridlock within the
facility caused by the arrival pattern of trucks picking up products. In
addition, there are product quality problems, primarily due to new rules
that the automotive industry (ISO 9000) is imposing on all of their
suppliers.

New Distribution Facility in the Northeast: For years, long before you
joined Canbide, the Divisional Sales and Marketing Departments have
clamored for a new distribution facility located near New York to serve
many customers throughout the Northeast. Previous studies have always
indicated that the benefits of a New York location are outweighed by the
costs. In spite of this, you are being asked to take another look.

A Quality Program for CERG: With the increasing prevalence of ISO 9000
programs, Canbide has initiated a corporate wide Excellence through
Quality (EQ) program. Most of the plants and operational locations have
already launched their EQ programs. Now, Mr. Harkins, the VP of Central
Engineering and Research Group (CERG), has picked you to help develop
and implement the EQ program for his corporate level engineering and R&D
groups.