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Report: BioPharma, Inc.

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In 2005, Phillip (Phil) Landgraf faced several glaring problems in the financial performance of his company, BioPharma, Inc. The firm had experienced a steep decline in profits and very high costs at its plants in Germany and Japan. Landgraf, the company 's president for worldwide operations, knew that demand for the company 's products was stable across the globe. As a result, the surplus capacity in his global production network looked like a luxury he could no longer afford.
Any improvement in financial performance was dependent on having the most efficient network in place, because revenues were unlikely to grow.. Cutting costs was thus a top priority for the coming year. To help design a more cost-effective network, Landgraf assigned …show more content…

Local production within each region is assumed to result in no import duty. Thus, production from Brazil, Germany, and India can be sent to Latin America, Europe, and the rest of Asia without Japan, respectively, without incurring any import duties. Duties apply only to the raw material, production, and transportation cost component and not to the fixed cost component. Thus, a product entering Latin America with a raw material, production, and transportation cost of $10 incurs import duties of $3.
NETWORK OPTIONS UNDER CONSIDERATION
The task force is considering a variety of options for its analysis. One option is to keep the global network with its current structure and capabilities. Other options include shutting down some plants or limiting the capability of some plants to producing only one chemical. Closing down a plant eliminates all variable costs and saves 80 percent of the annual fixed costs (the remaining 20 percent accounts for costs that are incurred related to the plant shutdown). Similarly, if a plant is limited to producing only one chemical, the plant saves 80 percent of the fixed cost associated with that particular chemical. The two options being seriously considered are shutting the Japanese plant and limiting the German plant to a single chemical.
QUESTIONS
1. How should BioPharma have used its production network in 2005? Should any of the plants have been

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