BRITISH COLUMBIA BOX LIMITED The Vancouver plant of the British Columbia Box Limited was facing a problem

with regard to the selection of a supplier for a new Flexo folder gluing machine. BCB was an international company which specialized in packages of all typesand the main product from the Vancouver plant was folded cartons for consumer goods such as beer, foods, cosmetics and toys. One of the main machines in its operation was the gluer folder and thus the choice of suppliers between the last two competitorsAndrews and Bale was a half million dollar decision to the plant manager, Mr Flynn and the plant industrial engineer, Mr Wood of the Vancouver division. A new Flexo folder gluer machine was needed urgently because:
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It was the main machine in its operation- it would combine flexographic printing with the folding and gluing operations. The existing machine was more than 18 years old and was not functioning properly. According to the sales manager, a new Flexo gluer would generate an additional business of $ 1,000,000. After an analysis of the 50 & 110 CNC Flexo folder gluer, Wood discovered that a new machine would save on set-up time and wastages, required lesser supervision and ensured higher quality product. The cost of a new two colour, Flexo folder gluer is estimated at $450,000 and savings described above would give a before tax return of 25%. More sensible to invest money in a new machine now than to spend $160,000 on the existing out-dated Folder Gluer.

Key Issues:
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Non- production managers did not feel the need of a new CNC Flexo gluer. Andrews s new CNC machine versions were causing some problems though the company promised to come up with an effective solution in six months. Bale new CNC machines had received considerable publicity in the industry s trade journal, Boxboard container creating a high degree of market awareness. Rhone were comparatively late entrants and were out of competition since they did not have process monitoring functions and did not seem very professional when it came to approaching BCB office Although the KalderCompany had very effective salespersons, the most recent one was inexperienced in the field of corrugated board machinery. And also they had not developed any expertise in numerically controlled machines which was the most basic requirement of BCB in the first place.

Possible solutions: After analysing the entire case we felt that BCB should consider Bale as a serious contender for the following reasons :
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Bale was an established company and had a long standing business relationship with BCB. Most of BCB s competitors used Andrews as a result of which their bargaining power had increased. If BCB shows interest towards Bale then inorder to reduce Andrews monopoly in the market Bale would definitely provide them with the wholesome package including the reduction of price which would be in favour of BCB. They were 8 extra features on Andrews machine which were not on the Bale machine, however it was important to take into consideration whether BCB actually needed all the features or no. Bale had comparatively more experience in NC functions and any adjustment to these functions could be done via telephonic hook up to the computer. There were several older manually controlled Bale machines in the US plants of BCB s parent company and all of them had performed satisfactorily. It could diagnose its own breakdown source. It offered an active matrix control panel screen. Bale provided the ideal balance of price, supplier reputation, product reliability, service reliability, supplier flexibility and hence was the best alternative.