BACKGROUND AND COMPANY OVERVIEW Macon Brock Jr., H. Ray Compton and Douglas Perry were the founders of Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. (Dollar Tree ) in 1986. Dollar Tree's mission statement states: "Logistics is committed to providing exceptional service to our stores through continuous improvements in operating costs, quality and safety." By providing strong leadership, superior process execution, acting with integrity and demonstrating teamwork in everything we do, our mission will be accomplished through our most valuable asset, our associate. » Since the company went public on NASDAQ under the symbol DLTR in 1995, Dollar Tree had become a very successful company in the retail industry. In order to remain competitive in its industry, Dollar Tree continued to price all merchandise in its store at exactly $1.00, giving it distinctive positioning compared to competitors like Dollar General and Family Dollar Stores. . This distinctive positioning has given Dollar Tree a competitive advantage that has allowed the company to grow in number and size across the United States. In 2004, Dollar Tree had annual sales of $3.2 billion and more than 2,600 stores in 48 states. Over the years, Dollar Tree has expanded its stores, ranging from 1,500 to 2,500 square feet of sales space to currently 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of sales space. To maximize sales, their stores are now located in strip malls to capture customer traffic. Dollar Tree stores offered three categories of merchandise, including consumable merchandise, general merchandise, and seasonal merchandise. For Dollar Tree to achieve high inventory turnover at low cost, the company was geared toward a well-managed and strategic logistics system. ...... middle of document ......fdefine the qualitative and quantitative aspects associated with the construction of a new distribution center. These factors include the time and money spent searching for and purchasing land, construction costs, recruiting costs, training costs, and insurance costs. By expanding an existing distribution center, Dollar Tree will avoid incurring additional costs associated with building a new distribution center in Hartford. Given the three-year lead time to plan network capacity, the transportation cost savings are not enough to offset the additional cost of building a new distribution center in Hartford. Therefore, it is not worth Dollar Tree to adopt option 2. Thus, Dollar Tree should expand the Briar Creek distribution center to take advantage of high inventory turnover at low cost, which is its business model..