Kudler Fine Foods

Kudler Fine Foods, a specialty food store with three locations in metropolitan San Diego. Kudler was founded by former defense contractor Kathy Kudler in 1998. and Kudler sells imported and domestic culinary gadgets and tools and food products including condiments and packaged foods, bakery and pastries, fresh produce, meat and seafood, and cheese and dairy products. Since its inception, Kudler's gets to her mission has been to provide customers the finest wines, foodstuffs and related goods in an "unparalleled consumer environment" (Apollo, 2007). greater value to the organization than the original inputs" (Chase-Jacobs-Aquilano, 2005, p. 154). Processes can be single-staged or multiple-staged, made to stock or made to order, hybrid, or paced or non-paced.

Using the process definition, Kudler's outputs include premium domestic and imported foodstuffs that are further divided into specialty dairy products, fresh bakery and pastries, fresh produce, condiments and packaged foods, and fresh meat and seafood. Organic farmers could potentially provide items for the produce section, fresh meat section and diary section. Kudler's business processes could also be affected by a decision to contract with local organic farmers.

Kudler's business processes that could be affected include finance and accounting, sales and marketing, human resources, operations, legal, and information technology. Finance and accounting could be affected by an increase or decrease in sales and profits that will need to be properly captured and recorded. to the consumer" (Chase-Jacobs-Aquilano, 2005, p. 422). Management of the supply chain is "a total systems approach to managing the entire flow of information, materials, and services from raw materials suppliers through factories and warehouses to the end customer" (Chase-Jacobs-Aquilano, 2005, p. 406). Components of supply chain include customers, local service providers, service support operations and suppliers.

Kudler's current supply chain management is very limited. No purchasing department exists in any of Kudler's three stores although standard guidelines, rules and forms exist. The department managers at Kudler's stores are separately responsible for determining the items needed for their departments, and for obtaining the best price, quality and delivery. In addition, the department managers receive, inventory and document all orders and submit invoices to the accounting department for payment.