Case: Excel Manufacturing Ltd$.$

Excel Manufacturing Ltd$.$ in Mississauga, Ontario, with offices in Fredericton, New Brunswick and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia has had a very successful year. They were awarded new business from NASA to build a state of the art classroom in the International Space Station. To start the project, Nicole the supply chain manager for Excel Manufacturing Ltd$.$ was asked to find a supplier to build gravity free chairs to be used in the classroom. She issued an RFP to $3$ suppliers that she thought were capable and motivated to the task. The RFP requested the suppliers to design and build a chair capable of withstanding the challenging environment of outer space.

After careful analysis of the RFP responses she awarded the contract to Unique Industries in Barrie, Ontario. Part of the reason Unique Industries was chosen was that they had a brilliant engineer named Gus Smart. Gus was considered to be an expert in the field of designing and building space chairs.

The payment terms agreed upon were $30\%$ deposit at start of the project, $30\%$ more when the chairs were ready for shipment and the final $40\%,30$ days after the chairs arrived at Excel Manufacturing Ltd$.$

Other details of the contract included; Title of the chairs passed at Unique Industries. Freight was ExWorks $($EXW$)$ Unique Industries. The chairs were to be completed within $16$ weeks. The final design must be fit and suitable for space travel and the rigors of teaching in zero gravity.

There was an express provision allowing the contract to be discharged in the event of war, terrorism and natural disasters that interfered with the final production of the chairs.

Unique Industries accepted the terms of the agreement and began the complex work of the design and build process. Gus was fortunate as he was able to take one of his existing award winning designs and modify it to suit the needs of Excel Manufacturing Ltd$.$

The first $8$ weeks of the project went very well. The chair bases were being assembled as design work carried on with the remainder of the components of the chair. At the end of week $8$ Unique Industries closed down for the Christmas break. Gus Smart who enjoyed skiing planned a ski trip to Switzerland to take on the mighty Swiss Alps.

On his way up the mountains he leaned too far out of the Gondola and fell to the ground below. He suffered a serious concussion from the fall which resulted in complete short term memory loss.

The president of Unique Industries, Raj Smart was devastated. He was concerned about Gus$$s health and he knew without Gus the project would not be completed on time. There was also a possibility that the chairs would not be able to be completed at all. Raj considered this a high profile project and wanted to secure future business with Excel Manufacturing Ltd$.$

With the project being less than half completed Raj had to inform Excel of the bad news.