Deere & Company have been in business more than 150 years, and it is one of the oldest companies (Rungtusanathem and Salvador 19). The company has more than 38,000 employees, and operates more than 160 countries worldwide (19). The company manufactures, distributes, finances, and services different kinds of agricultural products such as combines and tractors, construction and forestry equipment, skidders and forklifts, commercial and consumer lawn care equipment (19). Scott Nolan started to work for Deere & Company after he graduated from Iowa State University with a mechanical engineering degree (Rungtusanathem and Salvador 21). Scott was offered a position to become supply management manager in Deere & Company (19). He was given a responsibility …show more content…
Deere & Company decided to produce its own skid-steer loader which is a small loader with a 1,000–3,000-pound load capacity (19). The market share for the product was between 1 to 3 percent and grew at a rate of 15 to 20 percent every year . The company projected to sell 60,000 units with the revenue of $1.2 billion (20). The Deere & Company invested $35 million to produce skid-steer loader and improve the product design. In order to be competitive in the market, Scott decided to integrate a few suppliers in the early skid-steer development process. He said that there is no need for many suppliers at the early stage of the new product development process (21). Because reviewing all suppliers is time consuming instead the best suppliers can be chosen among them who can provide quality products on time. If the goal of the company is long term integration, the company might need many suppliers. The company has to choose the suppliers that have longer experience distributing parts to skid-steer loader producers. The suppliers have to be able to supply enough products when it is