Case Study

Order Quantities

301

CARL’S COMPUTERS

There was no question about Carl’s genius. Seven years ago he decided to enter the

competitive nightmare that the personal computer business had become. Although

on the surface that appeared to be a rather nongenius-like move, the genius came in

the unique designs and features that he developed for his computer. He also figured

a way to promise delivery in only two days for the local and regional market. Other

computer makers also had rapid production and delivery, but they were national

competitors, and the delivery time from distant locations generally made Carl able to

outcompete them on delivery.

Carl soon had a loyal following, especially among the many small businesses in

the area. Not only could Carl deliver quickly, but he also had very rapid service to

deal with any technical problems. That service feature became critical for the local

businesses whose very livelihood depended on the computers, and soon that rapid

service capability became more important than the initial product delivery. Since

most of these businesses were fairly small, they could not afford to have their own inhouse computer experts, so they depended heavily on Carl.

The Current Situation

All was not totally rosy at Carl’s Computers, however. Recently they had hired Rosa

Chang for the newly developed position of Inventory Manager for Aftermarket

Service. In the first week Rosa got a good idea of the challenges facing her after she

interviewed several of the people at Carl’s.

RANDY SMITH, CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER: “I’m not sure what you need to do, but whatever it is needs to be done fast! At this point our main competitive edge other than product delivery is service response, and I’m always hearing that we can’t get a unit in the

field serviced because some critical part is missing. Both the customers and the field service people are complaining about it. They make a service call, find out they need a certain part, but in...