BARILLA SPA, - (A)

Description
Barilla SpA, an Italian manufacturer that sells to its retailers largely through third-party
distributors, experienced widely fluctuating demand patterns from its distributors
during the late 1980s. This case describes a proposal to address the problem by
implementing a continuous replenishment program, under which the responsibility for
determining shipment quantities to the distributors would shift from the distributors
to Barilla. Describes support and resistance within Barilla's different functional areas
and within the distributors Barilla approached with the proposal.

QUESTIONS:
1.Diagnose the underlying causes of the difficulties that the JITD program was
created to solve. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this program?

2.What conflicts or barrieres internal to Barilla does the JITDprogram crate?

What causes these conflicts? As Giorgio Maggiali, how would you dealwith
these?

3.As one Barillas customers, what would your response to JITD be? Why?

4.In the environment in which Barilla operated in 1990, do you belive JITD (or a
similar kind of program) would be feasible? Effective? If so, which cutomers
would you target next? How would you convince them that JITD program was
worth trying? If not, what alternatives would you suggest to combat some of
the difficulties that Barillas operating system face?

FORD MOTOR COMPANY SC STRATEGY

Description
Describes Ford's examination of its supply chain to evaluate whether the company
should "virtually integrate" on the Dell Computers model.

QUESTIONS
1. Consider the experiences that you (or your Friends or members of your family)
have had in buying a car; compare these to the experience of buying a
computer online (if you have never done this, go to Dells website
www.dell.com- and explorehow online computer buying works). What do you
think explains the differences?
 2. What challenges does Dell derive from virtual integration? How important are
these advantages in the auto business?

3. What challanges doesFord face that are not also faced by Dells? How should
Ford deal with these chalanges?

4. If you were Teri Takai, what would you recommend to senior executives?To
what degree should Ford emulate Dells business model?

MANZANA INSURANCE: FRUITVALE BRANCH (ABRIDGED)

Description
Deals with performance assessment and improvement of a service operation in the
insurance industry, a market that is highly sensitive to response time. Two branch
offices in direct competition are described, and the impact of response time on
performance is suggested. Management choices that impact response time are
explored and the poorer performer of the two branches must decide how to respond.

QUESTIONS:
1. How is Fruitvale Branch doing?
2. What are the causes of these problems?
3. Can you identify the problems in the way Manzana is calculating turnaround
time in Exhibit 3 ?
4. If you were Bill Pippen, what would you recommend that Fruitvale do?

SPORT OBERMEYER LTD.

Description
The case describes operations at a skiwear design and merchandising company and its
supply partner. Introduces production planning for short-life-cycle products with
uncertain demand and allows students to analyze a reduced version of the company's
production planning problem. In addition, it provides details about information and
material flows that allow students to make recommendations for operational
improvements, including comparisons between sourcing products in Hong Kong and
China.
QUESTIONS:
1. Using the simple data given in Exhibit 10, make a recommendation for how
many units if each style Wally Obermayer should order during the initial phase
of production. Assume that all ten styles in the simple problema are made in
Hong Kong, and the Obermayers initial production commitment must be at
leasst 10.000 units. (Ignore Price differences among styles in your initial
analysis.)
2. What operational changes would you recommend to Wally to improve
performance?
3. How should Obermayer management think (both short-term and long-term)
about sourcing in Hong Kong versus China?

TEKTRONIX, INC.- GLOBAL ERP IMPLEMENTATION

Description
Reviews Tektronix's implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution
in all three of its global business divisions. This case tells the story of three
implementations, each with its own character and requirements. Tektronix managers
needed to synchronize the requirements of each division with the company's overall
need to standardize business practices and its desire to adhere to a common business
model across the enterprise. Details the difficulty of major business change in a mature
business and technical environment.

QUESTIONS:
1. Why did Tektronix implement ERP in stages? How should a Company decide
between implementing in stages or going big-bang?
2. How did Tektronix manage the risks of ERP implementation?
3. What is your overall assessment of the Tektronix ERP Project?

SCM at World Company, Ltd.

Description
Describes a supply chain with very quick (i.e., two week) response times and allows
students to explore how such short response times are achieved. Allows students to
explore why other supply chains, with much longer response times, might not be able
to replicate this performance.
QUESTIONS:
1. Examine the features od fashion apparel retailing in Japan. How can a Company
use its supply chain to compete in this environment?
2. Identify salent aspects of World`s supply chain focusing on the processes for
manufacturing, demand forecasting, and inventory planing.
3. Can the Worlds supply chain processes be replicated in other apparel
companies? What about non-apparel supply chains? Identify potential barriers.

TOYOTA
Description
On May 1, 1992, Doug Friesen, manager of assembly for Toyota's Georgetown,
Kentucky, plant, faces a problem with the seats installed in the plant's sole product--
Camrys. A growing number of cars are sitting off-line with defective seats or are
missing them entirely. This situation is one of several causes of recent overtime, yet
neither the reason for the problem nor a solution is readily apparent. As the plant is an
exemplar of Toyota's famed production system (TPS), Friesen is determined that, if
possible, the situation will be resolved using TPS principles and tools. Students are
asked to suggest what action(s) Friesen should take and to analyze whether
Georgetown's current handling of the seat problem fits within the TPS philosophy.

QUESTIONS:
1. As Doug Friesen, what would you do to adress the seat problem? Where would
you focus your attention and solution efforts?
2. What options exist? What would you recommend? Why?
3. What is the real problem facing Doug Friesen?

MILLIENNIUM
Description
Focuses on Millennium's strategy to grow and revolutionize drug development through
the use of new technologies such as genomics. Describes how Millennium
Pharmaceuticals--a fast-growing biotechnology firm in Cambridge, MA--has used
strategic alliances to finance the development of technology platforms based on the
latest breakthroughs in genomics.
QUESTIONS:
As the firm considers developing pharmaceutical drugs itself, they face a number of
challenges:
1) Can they revolutionize drug development by making it more predictable, faster, and
less costly?
2) How should they select their alliances such that they move closer to becoming a
pharmaceutical firm and still attract the funding needed for their strategy?
3) How can they continue to grow rapidly and attract and retain some of the best
minds in the pharmaceutical industry?