個案總覽

Giulia Ferrato, a recent MBA graduate, has developed a high-quality, lightweight titanium piton, a tool used in mountain climbing. She is currently contracting for the production of the pitons. At the time of the case, her sole customer has made an offer of significant guaranteed demand for a two-year period, and, almost simultaneously, she is presented the opportunity to take over the forge operation of her contract manufacturer. She is trying to decide what would happen to her business under such a scenario.

Giulia Ferrato, a recent MBA graduate, has developed a high quality piton, a tool used in mountain climbing. Owing to the security of a customer's offer to guarantee a significant level of demand for a two-year period, she agreed to take over the forge needed for production. She is now trying to decide whether or not to introduce a new product line, a wall hammer. Some of the current capacity can be used to make this product, but its manufacture would incur some new costs. A move away from offering only a single product line also raises the issue of cost allocations.

Giulia Ferrato, a recent MBA graduate, founded TenAlpina Tools to make and sell mountain climbing tools of her own design. While the fledgling company is growing and profitable, with overall profit margin about where Giulia had anticipated, she is having trouble understanding individual product-line gross margins and divergent market pressures on those margins. She has decided to explore the effects of the way in which she allocates costs.