Essay on Standard Machines Pricing

In order to meet customer demands for higher product quality, to comply with federally-mandated environmental regulations, and to reduce production costs, HCC must spend $2,000,000 within the next three years to upgrade equipment. The upgrade is expected to result in production efficiencies that will lower material and labor costs by reducing defective products, process waste, in-process inventory, and production man-hours through simplified work processes. It has been over a decade since significant modifications were made to the production facilities. Those changes were mostly technical in nature and did not substantially alter work processes or reduce overall employment. The average productivity gain in the industry for the past five years has been 3% per year. Financing for the loan to purchase the equipment

Owens & Minor is a distributor of surgical and medical supplies to hospitals and other health care facilities. Due to changing demand from customers, the company is facing increased operating costs, which has resulted in lower profit margins and even losses. In 1993, O&M recorded an $18 million profit, which was reduced to a loss of $11 million in 1995. The entire industry is experiencing similar difficulties. In an effort to resume profitability, O&M is evaluating alternatives to “cost-plus pricing”. Cost-plus pricing does not reflect the true cost of the services provided by O&M. Customers are demanding more of O&M while

ML had developed a policy of selling manual machines and renting automatic machines. Manual machines did not cost much, did not require service, and could be modified to attach different fasteners inexpensively. Automatic machines were rented on an annual basis because they would have been more expensive to sell and it provided annual income to ML. However, about 700 of the rented machines were returned each year. During the time that machines were in inventory, ML would modify the machines to attach different fasteners. This was expensive with an average cost per modification of $2000. If all 700 machines were modified during a given year this would have cost $1.4 million per year. It was also industry practice to provide preventative maintenance and

However, this system was found to be “ineffective for costing and bidding individual parts.” Id. While some machines produced low cost parts at high volume, other machines were producing high cost parts at low volume, which created cost discrepancies between various machines and thus misallocation of

Another factor is the quality of the product companies may have to buy cheaper products in order to keep the business running. The cost of living is going to be more expensive now since people are making more money the prices are going to go up. The creation of unions is a huge influence, sometimes they offer a lot of benefits but,

The three scenarios illustrated above clearly shows that the investment in the new machine creates greater value to the company, unless there should be some unexpected turnout in sales. By acquiring the Vulcan Mold-Maker machine Fonderia di Torino S.p.A will be able to replace labor intensive required semi-automated machines with automated machines, thus reducing medical claims. The company will also benefit from higher levels of product quality and lower scrap rates. Labor costs will be reduced by almost 298,334.4

* MM possesses a competitive position in this segment in terms of quality product offering and close customer relationships through high level of customer support.

A Make-or-Buy Decision at Baxter Manufacturing Company Scenario Summary Baxter Manufacturing Company (BMC) is a leader in deep-drawn stampings. It has been in business since 1978 as a privately held company. The process for making these stampings is very involved and complex. BMC developed methods for efficiently producing large volumes of stampings while keeping their quality very high. BMC uses state of the art machines to make the stampings and they make all the tooling necessary for those machines. In the years since their founding, many changes have impacted the industry – especially when it comes to computer networks and software. In the 1980s many of BMC's customers went to Just In Time

Price wars are always inevitable with many competitors in one market. In order to escape price wars, you have to design a vastly superior product or look for markets that haven’t been attacked yet. Both require significant investment, but moving into an entirely new market or technology can be vastly more expensive, and therefore risky. If you’re lucky, competition doesn’t follow you and you can have the majority of the market for

This could lead to a huge price war within the industry. This is why it is important for MCM to remain on the leading edge of technology and engineering.

There are many trade-offs for each of the decisions that a company makes within all three types of these cost types when quality consideration is used. If the company decides to put more time into training employees properly on operating machines and

The last alternative could be to create a better marketing about their products, to compare their brand with the competition so the market can understand that the differences between prices is because of the good quality, the brand name, the knowledge, and that they are the only ones, the expert ones on those kind of products.

The price ceiling is the maximum price a seller is allowed to charge for a product or service. An impact on society includes when the prices are so high of a product, that no one can buy it. A price floor is the lowest legal price a product or service can be sold at. When market price is at its lowest, it may still be too high for consumers to purchase products. Governments can intervene for any purpose, and they are the ones who set these price controls.

1. The Enron debacle created what one public official reported was a “crisis of confidence” on the part of the public in the accounting profession. List the parties who you believe are most responsible for that crisis. Briefly justify each of your choices.

2. Do you think that inadequate strategic planning was a factor that resulted in the company’s asking for trade protection?