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Barilla Spa

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 barriers or conflicts internal to Barilla does the JITD program create? What causes these conflicts? As Giorgio Maggiali, how would you deal with these?

3. As one of the Barilla's customers, what would your response be? Why?

4. In the environment in which Barilla operated in 1990, do you believe JITD ( or a similar kind of program) would be feasible? effective? If so, which customers would you target next? How would you convince them that the JITD program was worth trying? If not, what alternatives would you suggest to try to combat some of the difficulties that Barilla's operating system faces?

Sports Obermeyer

Using the sample data in exhibit 10, make a recommendation on how many units of each style Obermeyer should order during the initial phase of production. Assume that all ten styles in the sample problem are made in Hong Kong, and that Obermeyer’s initial order must be at least 10000 units. (ignore price differences in styles in your initial analysis).

Can you come up with a measure risk associated with your ordering policy? This measure must be quantifiable.

Repeat your methodology and assume now that all 10 styles are made in China. What is the difference (if any) between the two initial production commitments?

What operational changes would you recommend to improve operational performance?

How should Obermeyer think about sourcing ( short-term and long-term) in Hong Kong versus mainland China? What kind of sourcing policy do you recommend?