Fairmead Marine

Fairmead Marine was a seven-year old company, scavenged from the ashes of a bankrupt boat builder. It was started by Bud Fair and his friend Clint Mead. The two had developed the idea to start Fairmead when a local boat builder went out of business, leaving a small manufacturing facility sitting idle. Through a combination of their own resources, some private equity from friends and some debt, they managed to acquire the defunct boat builder’s assets and start Fairmead. Mead described Fair as “the money” behind the business.

It was late fall and Daniella Morales, the supply chain manager with Fairmead Marine, was pondering how to deal with a brewing storm in her company. One of her company’s suppliers, Boat Parts & More, was increasingly failing to meet expectations. Fairmead, a manufacturer located near Okanagan Lake in the interior of British Columbia, Canada that made fiberglass powderboats for the higher end of the pleasure boat maker. Fairmead relied heavily on suppliers for many of the fittings on the boats. It was critical to the company and their customers that “nothing second rate ever make it onto our boats”. Morales needed to sort the situation out and develop a plan of action before manufacturing ramped up the following month for the upcoming boating season.

To achieve the goal is to keep quality high while satisfying the most urgent customer requests. The company is also creating longer term contracts with several key suppliers (engine and hull materials) in order to ensure better inventory control.

By measuring the performance, Fairmead Marine should schedule periodical review and evaluation meetings. All improvements along the way should be noted in order to be evaluated. The overall customer satisfaction should be the main focus in order to maximize profit. At this time it is hard to know its success or failure, but by effort and investing time it will be of its success in the short term and definitely