Dankers Ltd Furniture
Case Study: The Purchasing and Inventory Management
Danker Ltd was a family run business since the mid eighteen hundreds. They had a factory
setup in Co Meath. Where they produced high class designed furniture and craft
manufactured hardwood furniture, where customisation was a part of their unique selling
point (USP). The Danker furniture company had a renowned reputation for supplying top end
and customised furniture to its customers.
Then when Rolf Danker was positioned as MD Managing Director, he changed the
company’s strategic plan. He could see the future of Danker in the ready-made home
cabinetry market. His objective behind this thought was to increase sales and market share for
Danker Ltd, so for this new strategic plan to be successful. Danker had to setup a post for a
new Purchasing Manager. This was necessary because the standard line was very different to
what they have been producing over the last number of years. Peter Connery was appointed
to this new position. As purchasing manager, Peter had many new important responsibilities
that came with the job. Though Peter prospered phenomenally as inventory clerk, he did not
however have any formal training taking on the role as purchasing manager and only had the
knowledge he had attained while working in Danker to aid him in fulfilling his duties.
Danker had always had a very strong relationship with Scandinavian suppliers. They also had
very little competitors due to their very high reputation in the crafts market. This however
was short lived. As costs began to rise in the standard division, so too did the competition and
as inventory clerk, it was the responsibility of Peter as purchasing manager to act fast and
adjust the old ways of purchasing inventory to more effective methods. It was his job to adopt
a more cost efficient approach, reducing costs whilst also maintaining a competitive price. It
was Peters responsibility to keep Danker “ahead of the pack”.
There were many issues raised from the logistics management in response to all of this. They
believed that Danker would have to reduce costs by:

Changing Supplier- they believed that it would be of use to source a supplier that
they had a good relationship with so they could intake up to satisfactory goods at a
reasonable price. This would benefit both supplier and Danker and would have a
knock on effect on all other recommendations.

Continuously review inventory so that stock levels are always kept at an “acceptable
level”
They also advised on improving delivery speed, reliability of purchased materials and quality
performance of suppliers. It was there view that If Peter could successfully implement all of
these measures, then the future of Danker would be prosperous and be successful.