Mayor Sarah Buylin of Gotham City is faced with a touchy situation involving a City Hall dispute between her newly appointed city supply manager,

Mayor Sarah Buylin of Gotham City is faced with a touchy situation involving a City Hall dispute between her newly appointed city supply manager, Ed Frisby, and Gotham’s venerable fire chief, Willard Clark.It all started soon after Mayor Buylin hired Frisby following a favoritism scandal linked to the purchases of the previous city supply manager. To prevent a recurrence of the problem, the mayor gave Frisby instructions to setup a standards committee and gave the new city supply manager full backing in enlisting assistance from other city employees.In accordance with the mayor’s instructions, Frisby formed a committee consisting of a Fire Department representative selected by Chief Clark, an engineer from the Public Works Department, an analyst from the Finance Department, and himself. The group began working on the high value purchases, and the first on the agenda was the purchase of ten new fire pumping engines and five extension ladder trucks, involving an estimated expenditure of approximately $5.5 million for the pumpers and another $5 million for the ladder trucks. Frisby got together with the standards committee and representatives of firefighting equipment suppliers.Through these meetings, the committee prepared open specifications, to which all agreed.Bids were received, opened publicly, and then analyzed. The supply manager, in accordance with the unanimousfindings of the committee, recommended that the city accept the lowest bid that met the minimum specificationsin all respects. There was considerable spread between the lowest and the next lowest bids.Then the trouble began. Shortly after making this recommendation, supply manager Frisby learned that Chief Clark had sent a resolution to the City Council recommending rejection of all the bids and award of the contract to another higher-priced supplier. Clark told the City Council that he would not be responsible for fighting firesunless his selection of equipment was approved by the council.The mayor called Frisby, “Look, Ed,” she said, “I’m in the middle of this fire equipment dispute. I think you’reright in this hassle, and I want to support your work on the standards committee. But Chief Clark is a respectedold-timer around here, and I think he’s got some of the City Council on his side. Do you have any ideas on howto settle this difficulty and keep the chief happy too?” “Another thing – we need to make sure that this new fireequipment is maintained well. I noticed that the current specifications do not require any warranty. We need to consider getting bids on either a warranty from the manufacturer or from an independent repair facility.”1. How should the city supply manager help solve the fire equipment dispute to the satisfaction of the fire chiefand the city council?2. If Ed Fisby could go back in time, what would you suggest that he change in the approach to this largeequipment purchase process?3. What are your recommendations concerning the best way to create specifications that can be placed in a“Request for Proposal” (RFP) for the service component, i.e. to obtain a warranty on the trucks?