Smitheford Pharmaceuticals Case

Smitheford Pharmaceuticals was founded by a former officer in the Civil War, General Robert Smitheford, in 1878. He moved his family to Colorado Springs to aid in his wife's tuberculosis condition. At the time, it was believed that the sunshine and high altitude had curative effects.

The company quickly grew and expanded. To improve the economies of several growing towns in Colorado, General Smitheford built additional manufacturing facilities in Pueblo, Grand Junction, Fort Collins, and Durango, Colorado.

Smitheford was an excellent leader, as demonstrated by his rapid rise in the Union Army. He used management incentives and was an early follower of Frederick Taylor on methods improvement and employee satisfaction. The company has since adopted total quality management (TQM) philosophies but has done a poor job of implementing these principles in manufacturing.

By the 1950s, Smitheford Pharmaceuticals grew to become the 6th-largest pharmaceutical firm in the United States. Expansion in manufacturing occurred in the 1970s and 1980s with operations in Canada, Puerto Rico, France, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil.

Many challenges are facing the industry today. NAFTA impacted some advantages that Canadian manufacturing might have had. Stricter FDA guidelines have made transportation of partially manufactured products more complicated; drug interactions, especially for the elderly, can seriously affect whether or not to release a new product, and manufacturing equipment has become more sophisticated, and with the advanced technology comes increase fixed costs.

Management would like to just implement one of Deming's points each year. First, which of the points do you think is most important and why? Secondly, would this methodology be effective? Why or why not?