Baxter Manufacturing Company
Abstract
Baxter Manufacturing Company (BMC) is a family founded company. Started by Walter R. Baxter in 1978, the 140,000-square foot manufacturing facility is headquartered in the Midwest in the United States. Walter Baxter’s children work for BMC, Kyle Baxter is the President and his sister Sue Barkly is Vice President of customer relations. BMC is recognized as a world class supplier of tools, dies and deep-drawn stamping; serving customers such as: General Motors, Ford, Whirlpool, and General Electric. Baxter holds a strong market position and has maintained a 20% growth each of the nineteen years in business. In the 1980s business trends move to a Just-In-Time (JIT) system, this would streamline traditional business proving to be a faster more efficient way for customers to correspond with suppliers. BMC converted to electronic data interchange (EDI), which allows customers to place orders electronically. EDI works well for many companies; however, BMC has not upgraded their internal computer systems requiring personal to manually print out orders and re-key information. In the past BMC has turned away business because they met capacity limits therefore not able to retain more business. In 1989 BMC hired Nancy Shaw to lead and educate the IS department, as the manager of IS Shaw’s mission was to upgrade BMC’s hardware and software by outsourcing to vendors. After two failed attempts to upgrade the internal computer system Shaw resigned and was replaced by Don Collins. Collins has experience as being a manager of Information Systems, he quickly recognized that BMC’s computer system will become obsolete in a few years. By 1996 Collins proposed a plan to upgrade the system using the current MIS department to build and install a manufacturing system tailored to BMC’s needs in approximately two years. The same year Lucas Moore, Vice President of manufacturing, proposed a plan for BMC to purchase an integrated manufacturing software package. Moore is
Baxter Manufacturing Company (BMC) is a family founded company. Started by Walter R. Baxter in 1978, the 140,000-square foot manufacturing facility is headquartered in the Midwest in the United States. Walter Baxter’s children work for BMC, Kyle Baxter is the President and his sister Sue Barkly is Vice President of customer relations. BMC is recognized as a world class supplier of tools, dies and deep-drawn stamping; serving customers such as: General Motors, Ford, Whirlpool, and General Electric. Baxter holds a strong market position and has maintained a 20% growth each of the nineteen years in business. In the 1980s business trends move to a Just-In-Time (JIT) system, this would streamline traditional business proving to be a faster more efficient way for customers to correspond with suppliers. BMC converted to electronic data interchange (EDI), which allows customers to place orders electronically. EDI works well for many companies; however, BMC has not upgraded their internal computer systems requiring personal to manually print out orders and re-key information. In the past BMC has turned away business because they met capacity limits therefore not able to retain more business. In 1989 BMC hired Nancy Shaw to lead and educate the IS department, as the manager of IS Shaw’s mission was to upgrade BMC’s hardware and software by outsourcing to vendors. After two failed attempts to upgrade the internal computer system Shaw resigned and was replaced by Don Collins. Collins has experience as being a manager of Information Systems, he quickly recognized that BMC’s computer system will become obsolete in a few years. By 1996 Collins proposed a plan to upgrade the system using the current MIS department to build and install a manufacturing system tailored to BMC’s needs in approximately two years. The same year Lucas Moore, Vice President of manufacturing, proposed a plan for BMC to purchase an integrated manufacturing software package. Moore is