Please to use the case below to answer the following questions thoroughly.

1)Determine and state the major issue/ issues

2)Suggest options which could possibly lead to a solution/amelioration of the stated issues.

3) Recommendations and the rationale from options as per the case.

4)Recommendations and their rationale outside of the ambit of the information given above. It is expected that in this section the student will impose his knowledge of the subject on devising solutions which were not already proposed or implied within the case.

     

 

Freeman Biotest Inc CASE 2 Freeman Biotest was one of the largest independent companies supplying the food processing industry. Its initial success had come with a food preservative, used mainly for meat-based products and marketed under the name of 'FBXX". Other products were subsequently developed in the food colouring and food container coating fields, so that now FBXX accounted for only 25 per cent of total company sales, which now were slightly over $100 million. The decision The problem over which there was such controversy related to the replacement of one of the process lines used to manufacture FBXX. Currently two such process lines were used, both had been designed and installed by Brayford Corp., a process equipment manufacturer. It was the older of the two Brayford lines which was giving trouble. High breakdown figures, with erratic quality levels, meant that output level requirements were only just being reached. The problem was: should the company replace the ageing Brayford line with a new Brayford line, or should it commission another process line, the 'Bi-line 8'line, which would be manufactured by a relatively new company, Bi-Line Inc. VP for Technology had drawn up a comparison of the two units, shown in Table 4.7. The body considering the problem was the newly formed Management Committee. The committee consisted of the VP for Technology and the Marketing VP who had been with the firm since its beginning, together with the VPs for Operations and Finance, both of whom had joined the company only six months before. What follows is a condensed version of the information presented by each manager to the committee, together with their attitudes to the decision.