Cottrill, Inc Case Study

On November 12th, Judy Stevens, purchasing supervisor at the Cottrill, Inc. plant in Columbus, Ohio, was reviewing a proposal from Saxton Wireless. Judy was dissatisfied with Cottril’s paging service from its current supplier and had been approached by Saxton about switching service providers. She knew that the sales representative at Sxton was expecting a reply later that day and needed to finalize her decision.

Cottrill, Inc.

Cottrill was established in the mid-1800’s and was the one of the largest corn refining operations in North America. The company operated six wet-milling plants, four in the United States and two in Canada. Cottrill was an industry leader and maintained this position by continuously developing new products, technologies, and manufacturing processes.

The Columbus plant had been operating for over 20 years and employed more than 100 people. It produced high-fructose corn syrup, starch, and glucose, which were used as supply inputs for a variety of industries including baked goods, beverages, confections, corrugating and paper, and processed foods. Cottrill completed primarily in the business-to-business segment and recognized that customers demanded both reliability and consistency.

The Purchasing Division

Cottrill’s purchasing department had to ensure that the plant ran efficiently and was responsible for replenishing a variety of supplies at the plant, ranging from chemicals to communications equipment. A current initiative for Cottrill, and particularly for the purchasing department, was reducing the level of working capital. This had been a focus in the purchasing department for over two years, and the department target was an annual decrease of $300,000.

Judy Stevens was the purchasing supervisor at the Columbus plant and had one employee reporting to her. In general, the purchasing department had a large degree of autonomy as most decisions did not have to be cleared by Judy’s boss, the plant controller.

The Paging...