Case Horizon Foods Corporation

Case horizon foods corporation

"So, why are we calling this meeting?" Roger Bennett asked. "Are we finally beginning to recognize that we have a distribution problem?" As a newly appointed brand manager, Roger had just been promoted from the sales force and was interested in clearing up some of the problems that had appeared during his customer contacts. "How can we continue to sell our products when we can't tell our customers when our products will be delivered?"

"I think you have guessed the problem," replied Sally Ryan, the production scheduling manager. "We have so many requests for special production runs to supply inventory that we can't seem to plan a decent normal schedule." It seemed that the production scheduling desk had become a crisis center, and there was a continuing series of requests from sales.

Mel Young, the financial director, looked up as they entered the conference room. "Maybe one of you can tell me what's happening out there. I pay some pretty large bills to those public warehouses to store our products. I have had to increase our working capital in order to have enough inventory on hand. Yet we never seem to have enough. Can't we get some kind of control out there?"

Roger spoke first. "Mel, you know how we are organized. We let Production take care of supplying the market, and let Marketing take care of dealing with the customer. My apologies to Sally, but when I was in the field, I was never sure if Production would be able to back me up."

Sally began to bum a little at that last comment. "Roger, I can't blame you, because you haven't been in the corporate office very long, but it always seemed to me that Marketing was always a little out of control. You guys wanted everything—the full product line and lots of inventory—but you really couldn't tell me what the customers wanted to buy and when they planned to take it."

Background

Horizon Foods is a relatively small specialty foods processor serving a national market with a broad...