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The Captiva Conglomerate Case Study

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Al Carpenter, Materials manager at Captiva Conglomerate, has called a meeting with his Inventor and Spares manager, Sam Sliderule, and his Supply manager, Aaron Blumencranz, Jason Patel , vice president of Operations, Monica Stein, vice president of finance, and Jana Perry, director of Information Technology, are also in attendance. The topic: the contract with S.O. Software (SOS), the developer/supplier of a custom inventory management and spare parts management system.
Al begins: "Here's our agenda: I. Status of the SOS contract; II. Development of a corrective action plan: III. Lessons learned. Any questions?"
How did we get in such a mess?" Monica asks.
Al interrupts: "Let's save this for agenda item III. Let's start with a status report. Sam, you're the user. Begin."
Sam answers, "We just completed a test of the spares management module. It's a disaster! It might be an Okay system, but its four months behind schedule, and my people can't use it."
"Well I certainly can use it. I think it's great!" Jim comments.
"Yes but you have an M.S. in information Technology. My guys want to access the relevant data without all the hassle the system requires," Sam continues.
"How about the regional and centralized inventory management system?" asks Al.
"It's 10 months late," Sam says.
"Aaron sounds like we should use them." Al adds angrily.
Aaron replies, "Under the contract Gerry [Captiva's president] signed, we don't have a leg to stand on. The contract calls for the 'best efforts,' 'whenever possible,' etc. Oh, and one additional small item: The project manager as SOS says they've used up the $1 million called for in the contract. In fairness to the supplier, there have been 17 unpriced changed orders."
Jason Patel (VP Operations) joins the discussion: "This system was supposed to provide me with better support. 'More time' were your words, Jana. And you said, 'We should be able to cut our inventory while providing the improved support. 'Who wrote the specs for the software?"
"When we received the contract form Gerry, the specs looked like they were drafted by S.O.S. But Jana [IT manager] had initialed each page," Aaron answers.

Captiva Conglomerate case. Perform an analysis and assessment of the case that addresses the following:
o A summary of the major facts surrounding the case
o A narrative discussion pointing out the major problem
o List a minimum of 3 possible alternatives that Captiva can employ to resolve the problem and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Jana is the IT Director. What are you going to do with her? What are you as CEO of Captiva going to fix this mess and costs?

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The Captiva Conglomerate Case Study is examined.

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Captiva Conglomerate case. Perform an analysis and assessment of the case that addresses the following:

o A summary of the major facts surrounding the case

The major facts associated with this case entail the ineffective implementation of a spares management module that was contracted out to a third party for the organization, which is not only behind significantly behind schedule, but also not capable of being understood by the people who are supposed to be using the system. It is a business disaster that is negatively impacting the company's ability to perform in accordance to their desired standards as well as to their normal capacity. The contract that was entered by the company was contingent upon the S.O. software being implemented by a specified time, but the implementation has been delayed by ten months and the portions that have been implemented in regard to the centralized inventory manage system can't be understood by employees who are responsible for using this system.

This has resulted in the company potentially facing the inability to effectively control their inventory as the discrepancies that exist as a result of the substandard performance by the hired contractor is a serious problem for the organization.

o A narrative discussion pointing out the major problem

The major problem that is evident is the fact that the inventory management module ...

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