A Make-or-Buy Decision at Baxter Manufacturing Company

Lowe’s is a home improvement warehouse that was founded in 1946 as a single store and since has grown to become the second largest in the world. As technology has evolved, Lowe’s has made many advances incorporating new systems and devices to stay competitive. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the information technology management systems used at Lowe’s. It will look at Porter’s Five Force Model, supply chain management; data base management system, five agent-based technologies, e-commerce and system development lifecycle. Furthermore, it will look at business continuity planning, emerging trends and security vulnerabilities relates to the organization to remain competitive.

Finally, the administrative office should completely revamp their office. While waiting on the new location, they need to clean up and streamline their process. Then, will not only the manufacturing process run smoothly, but also the administrative offices will run smoothly as well. The technology upgrade will give them an opportunity to computerize their process and this will help declutter and organize the limited office space they currently have now. The administrative staff needs to be prepared for new software and the learning process that will come with it. While it may take some time to learn the new process, eventually it will save them more time in the end.

The company that our group has partnered with for this project is CVS Pharmacies. We looked into this company to see if there were any areas for improvement within the organization that would have an impact on external customers. Within this define stage is when we did exactly that, we defined the problem. One problem that we found within the CVS Pharmacy, that would be easy enough to handle given the scope of the project, concerned the stores current inventory (overstock, backstock) system. It seemed that currently there was no formalized process with regard to placing items in overstock, resulting in an unorganized and unconventional overstock area. This created a problem because it made it harder

Midsouth Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit, member driven, business advocacy group is in the processes of upgrading their current information system. Midsouth has decided they need to upgrade their information system to a more currently system, in order to increase revenue producing opportunities. Their original IS system was built by an outside consultant (who is no longer in business) on a departmental need base, rather than a company wide need. The original system was put into place in 1987, with modifications done in 1993, and 1995. During this time all IS decision were made by outside

The major problem in the first implementation was the ineffective change management practice followed. The stakeholder communication about the ERP system was not managed properly. There was no shared ownership or strategic alignment of the employees to the vision of the company in implementing this system. The employees were not clearly communicated the reasons for getting this ERP system at Bombardier. While some perceived that it would make life easy, others were skeptical. Managers did not show enthusiasm for the project and in many cases, even abdicated their responsibility to propagate the vision and passed this crucial task to the operational level employees. Some stakeholders amongst employees perceived the project to be a top-down initiative and felt disconnected with the broader vision of streamlining the inventory management, which in fact would have positively affected them. Delays further derailed the projects. Business teams and the project teams did not work with a common objective.

The process efficiency of purchasing order release was also restricted by BAL’s existing IT system. Though BAL had capability to electronically cut purchase orders to larger suppliers via web-based online tools developed by these suppliers, BAL’s current legacy system was not supporting its interfaces connected to suppliers’ web browsers and thus resulted extra manual work to feed ERP system.

They also had a contract with an external consulting firm. They realized that to resolve the issues they were having utilizing the existing infrastructure they would have to employ additional IT staff which would be disproportionate from the existing overall staff and they would have upgrade the existing hardware and software, which would only resolve some of the issues at a great cost. Eventually, Overstock.com decided that a new solution would be the best and most cost effective to resolve their issues. They set out general requirements for the new solution which were that the new solution would need to be flexible with the increase of call volumes during seasonal times, make the customer service experience more efficient and better quality for the customer, allow for the redeployment of IT staff working with the support of the contact center in other strategic business initiatives, and satisfy Service Level Agreements to ensure maximum uptime to motivate customer service and other corporate goals. Eventually, Overstock.com chose to go with a company called

Another huge expense the company had was all the improvements they were making. It would cost the company about $500,000 per year, since they did not use a contract manufacturer. They estimated they lost a total of $200,000 per year. Because of all the costs, Scotts is experiencing difficulties at the Temecula plant. They are considering the possibility of completely outsourcing the spreaders manufacturing and assembly to China to save costs. Scotts Miracle-Gro already has experience in outsourcing. They have already outsourced the most complex components of the spreaders to China. They are considering completely outsourcing the company in hopes that they will profit from the move. In doing so, they would have to shut down the Temecula plant and, by closing the plant, Bob Bawcombe, will lose all the skilled laborers he has trained and his efforts to keep them by hiring temporary workers, will have gone to waste. Another issue to complete outsourcing is there “in-molding labeling” technology. If Scotts decides to outsource, it needs to provide the contract manufacturer with the equipment and the know-how to perform “in-molding labeling”, if not, they must remove the feature from its spreaders. An additional concern with this plan is if they do offer the training and equipment, it is questionable that the manufacturer will be able to use the current mold from Temecula. They would need 10 molds at $40,000 each and each mold lasts approximately five years.

As we know, Ian Wyckoff has to make a decision between “buy” or “built” opportunity, and it is not an easy decision because it is related to the operation of the company in the next few years. After reading the case along with McCarthy’s recommendation and doing some researches online to understand more about the company, I completely agree with McCarthy that the company should invest in developing in house molding capability. To prove why building the new capability in-house is better than buying the plant of GenieTech, I compare tangible and intangible cost of two alternatives, and I also look at the current state of the company to evaluate how their business develop over the next few years.

The designated choices of our hardware and software gives end-users ease of use with Timeslips, we are able to carry out our daily tasks of billing, creating new files for clients, tracking time and expenses for our attorneys and clients. Recommendations for improvement would be to keep current with updates, Our company is currently running Windows 2003 Standard Edition operating system, as of July 30, 2015 Microsoft has eliminated Windows 2003 from support. Each day we continue to wait for an update we are at

b) Another alternative should be using the negotiation method in order to develop a “win-win” situation. A negotiating party would have to be applied, “When a long period of time is required to produce the items purchased” (p 375). In these circumstances, suitable economic price adjustment clauses must be negotiated. Opportunities for various improvements may develop, such as the new manufacturing methods, new packaging possibilities, substitute materials, new plant layouts, and new tools. Negotiation permits an examination and evaluation of all these potential improvements. Competitive bidding does not. The advantage would be assurance of a long-term business with the Company along with reasonable profit for the supplier and reasonable cost for the buyer.

It might not be in the retailer’s best interest to perform such upgrade, as the new system will replace three of the existing legacy systems in terms of ordering and fulfillment. The IS department will perceive such upgrade as a radical move and is expected to show high resistance in response to it. Even though Zara has a decentralized decision making process, the retailer’s IS department exercises absolute autonomy on the IT infrastructure and design. The fact that “only one person had left the department” in the past 10 years further confirms that the retailer is suffering from cognitive and action inertia, and thus creating a huge barrier for such

Since 2008, Bergerac had been exploring the opportunity to begin its own production of cartridge components. Plastic suppliers like GenieTech and Elsinore faced difficulties in responding to demand spikes, leading to production delays. Such supplier unreliability made it challenging for Bergerac to optimize its cartridge production. Thus, the company had to carry more inventory of parts and finished goods than Wyckoff could have liked. The obvious appeal to fully control the supply of plastic lead to a strategy, the company has to decide whether to buy or build this capability. GenieTech owner was interested in retirement and was willing to sell the company for a purchase price of $5.75 million. GenieTech has 8 molding presses each could produce 5 cartridges per cycle with a total capacity of 10,782,720 cartridges per year with 5 days production in a week. The other alternative is to build a unit with 4 molding presses which are more efficient than the presses at GenieTech. The total capacity of the unit will be 6,097,371cartridges per year with 5 days production in a week. It is required to predict the best long term decision among the buy and build options.

Because the new system is not enough for SF Express compete with other companies like Fedex and DHL, etc. The facility updating is also important for SF Express. If the system is updated, it means the software is suitable for the new trend. But the hardware of SF Express still needs to be improved. No matter how updated version software is, it still needs hardware support it. So updating the hardware is also required for using the new warehouse management system. The new warehouse management system is not going to replace all the human works. Therefore, training for the staffs to manage the warehouse is very important for SF Express. If the staffs can be more familiar the new system, the most efficiency will be gained. The skills of the staffs need to improve at the beginning. Also, SF Express needs to set up a new department for the warehouse management. Between the department conferences need to be held for improving the performance. One of the important principles for this kind of company is protecting the stocks that the customer has been given to you. SF Express needs to have some ways to protect the stocks. The warehouse needs more skillful workers to operate it. The warehouse will become more efficient when different aspects have been improved. The new system will help to build up the warehouse network for SF Express which is the global trend. SF Express needs to be patient for updating the warehouse management system since at the beginning there will be many difficulties need to overcome. But for long term updating the warehouse management system is still beneficial for SF

Considering the traditional legacy management reporting and decision support systems, they could not maintain performance and build a competitive advantage after the acquisition strategy and expansion. Almost 21 decided to utilize an integrated system that could facilitate transaction processing, analytical work and reporting so as to forecast accurately to follow the fashion trend and react rapidly to the target market. Appreciating the development of information technology, with its capability of offering connectivity and enterprise integration, supply chain, customer relationship management and business intelligence applications, not only improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the company’s supply network, but also satisfies