Hey guys. Really stuck on this even after reading it multiple times. Can anyone help me? The questions are asking:

Alternative Courses of Action/Strategy: (a) What feasible alternatives should the decision-maker consider? (b) What are the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative?

Please explain with full details.

"Hi, Tom! Come on in! Good to see you. You remember Richard Binish, don't you?" Lippet's spirits were buoyed by O'Leary's cheery greeting. "Absolutely! How are you, Richard? Coming out from the old horse's shadow a bit now?" Binish politely smiled and nodded affirmatively. Light banter continued as the three moved down the hallway to a small conference room. Well, great news, Tom! DEP has the contract again!" O'Leary paused, then continued, "But there's going to be a slight modification. Instead of the traditional 2-year contract we're only going to offer a 1-year deal. Nothing personal, just that management feels it's only fair to Richard that these last contracts I negotiate be limited to a year. That way he doesn't get locked into any deals that might make him look bad!" O'Leary roared with laughter at his last comment. "It is certainly no reflection on DEP," Richard interjected. "It simply gives me a chance to evaluate suppliers in the coming year without being locked into a long-term contract. If my evaluation concurs with what Mr. O'Leary has told me about DEP I see no reason that our successful relationship won't continue." "Entirely understandable," replied Tom as his mind pondered the meaning of Binish's evaluation. "I'm confident you'll find DEP's service and product every bit as good as Mike has told you." Following the meeting O'Leary invited Lippet to join him for a cup of coffee in GARD's lunchroom. Binish excused himself, saying he had other matters to attend to. As they enjoyed their coffee, O'Leary sighed. "You'll be seeing some changes coming, Tom. The best I could do was get you a year." "I'm not sure I understand. As far as I know GARD's never had a major problem with DEP's products." "We haven't," O'Leary replied. "At least not under the guidelines I hammered out with management. But there will be some changes by next year." "Such as?" "Well, you remember when I started buying from DEP? You were the leaders, no question about it. Now I knew some other suppliers had moved up since then but I figured, hey, if it ain't broke don't fix it! As long as DEP's price was in line, I knew I wouldn't have any troubles with manufacturing. Less headaches for me. Now it turns out that Binish has some other ideas about purchasing. I can tell you for a fact that he's sampled several lots of DEP feedstock. He's also invited other potential suppliers to submit samples. The long and short of it is that there's not much difference between DEP and the competition in terms of product." "I still don't clearly understand the problem, Mike." "In Binish's terms, product merely becomes a 'qualifying criterion.' If everyone's product is comparable, especially in something such as polymer feedstock, how do you distinguish yourself? Binish claims companies will need to demonstrate something called "order winning criteria' to get our business in the future." "I still don't see a problem. We have our reviews with GARD every year. Our service performance has always been found to be acceptable." "True. But acceptable according to my guidelines. Let me throw a number at you. On average GARD schedules delivery 10 days from date of order. 1 count on-time delivery as plus or minus 2 days from scheduled delivery date. That's a 5-day service window. GARD's minimum service threshold within this 5-day window is 95 percent. DEP had a 96.2 percent record last year using my window. Do you know what Binish is talking?" "Probably 3 ?" To avoid material shortages and thereby maximize production, DEP normally maintains a 7-day supply of each compound. An earlier attempt at JT manufacturing was abandoned after DEP experienced material shortages and production shutdowns. As a result, the manufacturing department is opposed to any reimplementation of JT-type concepts. The manufacturing department is electronically linked to the procurement and marketing/sales departments. Marketing/sales receives customer orders by phone or facsimile. The orders are then entered into the information system. This allows manufacturing to monitor incoming materials shipments as well as schedule production runs. Under this system most customer orders are produced within 6 to 8 days of order. Following production, orders are immediately sent to a warehouse a short distance from DEP. At the warehouse shipping personnel verify manufacturing tickets, match the manufacturing ticket with the purchase order, and prepare shipping documents. Once the shipping documents are completed, the order is prepared for shipment (e.g., palletized, shrink-wrapped) and labeled. Once a shipment is labeled, delivery is scheduled. Three to 6 days normally elapse from the time an order leaves manufacturing until it is shipped from the warehouse. Market distribution is divided between the private DEP truck fleet and common carriers. The majority of DEP's customers are within a 200-mile radius. DEP trucks service these customers via twice-a-week delivery routes. Customers beyond this delivery zone are serviced through common carriers; delivery time fluctuates according to location and distance but rarely exceeds 6 days from time of shipment