Barilla Spa (A) Case Questions
Problem 1. Diagnose the underlying causes of the difficulties that the JITD program was created to solve. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this program?
Problem 2. What conflicts or barriers internal to Barilla doe the JITD program create? What causes these conflicts? As Giorgio Maggiali, how would you deal with these?
Problem 3. Why are Barilla's customers so resistant to the JITD idea? How might Maggiali be more successful in persuading customer to at least try the JITD program?
Problem 4. In the environment in which Barilla operated in 1990, do you believe JITD would be feasible? Effective? If so, which customer would you target next? How would you convince them that the JITD program was worth trying? If not, what alternatives would you suggest to combat some of the difficulties that Barilla's operating system faces?
In general, if one party is to make the inventory replenishment decisions for the system, who should it be? Why is it Barilla who is making the decision? Why doesn't Barilla pass information to the distributor and let the distributor make the "system-optimal" decision?
To see the case study, go to the web site below:
https://home.comcast.net/~wade.mckelvey/barilla.pdf