Case 1: Gulf Creative Ideas Gulf Creative Ideas designs and manufactures wood furniture. Founded by Abdullah Al-Kuary in Qatar, the company began by producing traditional gulf-style custom-made wooden furniture. The company developed a solid reputation for creative designs and high-quality workmanships. Sales eventually encompassed the entire Gulf region. Along with the growth came additional opportunities. Traditionally, the company focused entirely on custom-made furniture, with the customer specifying the kind of wood from which the piece would be made. As the company’s reputation grew and sales increased, the sales force began selling some of the more popular pieces to retail furniture outlets. This move into retail outlets led Gulf Creative Ideas into the production of a more standard line of furniture. Buyers of this line were much more price-sensitive and imposed more stringent delivery requirements than did client of the custom lime. Custom-designed furniture, however, continued to dominate sales, accounting for 60 percent of volume and 75 percent of sales. Currently, the company operates a single manufacturing process, where both custom furniture and standard furniture are manufactured. The equipment is mainly general purpose in nature to provide the flexibility needed for producing pieces of furniture. The layout puts together saws in one section of the facility, lathes in another, and so on. The quality of the finished product reflects the quality of the wood chosen and the craftsmanship of individual workers. Both custom and standard furniture compete for processing time on the same equipment by the same craftspeople. During the past few months, sales of the standard line steadily increased, leading to more regular scheduling of this product line. However, when scheduling trade-off had to be made, custom furniture was always given priority because of its higher sales and profit margins. Thus, scheduled lots of standard furniture pieces were left sitting…