Baxter Key Issues Baxter Manufacturing Company is a world class parts manufacturer. BMC can produce efficiently large volumes of high quality stampings. Over the years there has be a rapid growth which has caused some problems. BMC had to turn away some existing customers because they could not handle so many orders. They did not have the capacity for it therefore loss many sales and customers who never returned. BMC decided they needed to invest to increase capacity. BMC used the just-in-time approach which meant they carried minimal inventories of raw materials and parts. This created a long cycle time, the whole production process took at least 2 weeks to complete. This is too long for customers to wait on their product. Also BMC has been using paper document flows between customer and supplier. The automotive customers have forced BMC to convert to electronic data interchange (EDI). This means electronic flows directly between the customer’s computer and BMC’scomputer. But there are still problems and delays due to compatibility as each type of customer has its own variation on the EDI standard it uses. The main problem now was the decision to make or buy the manufacturing software system. Moore, vice president of manufacturing proposed to purchase the EMS package and Collins, MIS manager suggested we continue to build our system. Baxter was not sure which route to take as both have its pros and cons. Though the past unsuccessful package implementation were failures this has deterred Baxter decision about buying yet another software. Collin suggests that building our own manufacturing software will be more customize towards the way they do business. Baxter must make the best decision based on what the company needs are and what will provide the most benefits in the long run.