Fairmaid

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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 met through a power boating club and had become very good friends. Fair was a late-career medical doctor with a specialty in radiology. He had semi-retired eight years ago and was looking for a way to keep himself challenged. Mead was a retired marine engineer with 30 years’ experience in the design of industrial marine vessels.

In the last seven years the company had developed into a well-known regional business, with sales estimated to be in the range of $10 to $12 million (since this was a privately held company, financial

Statements were not released). The company’s products include two lines of recreational boats known as runabouts:

o GSX250 Coho: designed for weekend or overnight trips on the water. These boats included sleeping facilities, a head (washroom) and galley (kitchen).

o GTX150 Sport: designed for daytime play on the water, these were fast boats that could be used for water skiing, fishing and other recreational water activities.

Daniella Morales was the first supply chain manager hired by Fairmead , she was hired she had already accumulated five years of purchasing experience, all of it working with a major company in the forestry industry. She joined Fairmead looking for a new challenge and, as she put it, “to say I got a challenge is an understatement!”

Morales faced problems with one of Fairmead’s suppliers, Boat Parts & More which was owned by Sharma, was increasingly failing to meet expectations, Jay Sharma was the owner of Boat Parts & More Inc. He was a young business owner, 30 years old. The first line he developed was fabric boat coverings (see Appendix I for a description of these types of items) attracted Fairmead attention.

Morals tried to investigate and solve the problems with Sharma; she found issues regarding supplier selection and development, quality, inventory and internal problems such as miscommunication and lack of documentation.

The risk assessment was the basic of supplier selection and development, also she needed to develop procedure to improve quality and deploy TQM strategies.

Table of contents

ISSUE IDENTIFICATION3

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ROOT CASE ANALYSIS6

ALTERNATIVES AND/OR OPTIONS9

RECOMMENDATION(S) 13

IMPLEMENTATIONS14