Mba-502 Kudler Operation Management

Operation Management

Introduction

Kudler Fine Foods has several important issues in terms of its operation management. Kudler made the decision to start contracting with local growers of organic produce. Continuing to find new ways to increase business and gain an edge over the competition is important in the market. Developments may include merger and acquisition activity involving continuing price competition, growth of take-away food products and services, change in operations and continuing consumer concerns about food safety and ethics (Shears &Hillier, 2000). This paper will identify those business processes at Kudler that could be affected by this change in the operation. It will also discuss Kudler supply chain, quality control tools and performance standards that Kudler would need to put in place to ensure the effectiveness of its operations. Once Kudler has identified the above categories for change, create internal planning teams to address each issue and find solutions for implement.

Supply Chain

"The idea of supply chain management is to apply 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). Kudler makes every effort to provide customers with total satisfaction. They offer a varied selection of gourmet foods and plan to offer organic products by local growers. She does this by monitoring gourmet food stores, going to conventions and visiting the competitor's websites. Once she finds new and interesting items, Kathy introduces them to the staff during her operations review meetings and allows her managers to give their opinions of the new product. Then the best decision will be made that Kudler can achieve a significant competitive advantage by the way they configure and manage their supply chain operations.

The department managers can measure supply chain performance such as inventory turnover, cost of goods sold, average aggregate inventory value and weeks of supply. When purchasing organic produce, Kudler needs to set up proper inventory system that would allow checking three stores' inventory levels to avoid waste. This will allow Kudler to launch risk-hedging supply chains with the organic growers. By utilizing risk-hedging strategy, it will allow the company to pool and share resources in a supply chain so that the supply cannot be disrupted (Chase-Jacob-Aquilano, 2005). Each of the three department managers determines requirements for the items their department sells and places purchase orders directly with suppliers who would give them a better price on the products. It is the responsibility of the department managers to obtain the best price, quality, delivery possible, and verify all orders in terms of whether they received the correct items and in undamaged conditions. The alignment of supply strategy and product characteristics is extremely important to the operational success of Kudler Fine Foods.

Business Processes

Chase-Jacobs-Aquilano refers to "a process is any part of an organization that takes inputs and transforms them into outputs that, it is hoped, are of greater value to the organization than the original inputs." There are many factors management needs to consider the processes involving purchasing, quality control, inventory management, forecasting, merchandise selection and operations systems. It is essential to develop a uniform process for capturing and elevating the best new ideas to carry organic produce but also assess them in the context of their impact for the future. This information must be available to the entire cross-functional product team, allowing stakeholders and management to view information across all products. Understanding how Kudler Fine Foods processes work is vital to their business. "The objective of a business process is to identify delays, transport distances, processes and processing time requirements to simplify the entire operation" (Chase-Jacobs-Aqulano, 2005 p.185). One statistical process control tools are process flow analysis methods that Kudler should use assessing the exact tasks of these activities and their organization within the process. By diagramming the process, managers can identify variations and disruptions.

Quality Control Management

In order to provide customers with high quality organic produce and food safety, Kudler needs to implement total quality management (TQM). Kudler organization management approach is to focus on quality, customer needs, emphasize participation and teamwork of all involved in the firm's activities and establishes an organizational structure of continuous improvement by employees. One way to satisfy customers is to offer a changing selection of gourmet foods as they become available since customers always appear to be demanding something new. Kathy considers one of her key responsibilities to be that of identification of new gourmet items can be offered in her stores. Customers expect to receive health benefits and tastier produce from their purchase of these organically grown products.

Operations management can focus on improving the quality gap: the difference between what customers want as well as what they actuall get from Kudler. The department managers at each location should also work to develop cooperative, long-term relationships with suppliers to get good quality materials and require inspecting all shipments of produce once they arrive from the growers before they are stocked on the floor for sale. Just-in-time needs to be implemented at the strategic level as product, employee compensation, accounting and sales are all affected by JIT. The managers must carefully monitor their suppliers to continue to be able to meet JIT deadlines with quality organic produce.

This will serve price competition, to guarantee the authenticity of the product about food safety and ethics that Kudler is selling. Kathy should take comment during her operations review meetings at each week to discuss with the managers the quality of organic produce that each store is selling to improve merchandise selection. Kathy should consider the design and location of an operations facility such as the availability, cost of labor and energy as well as how close to suppliers or customer and evaluate how efficiently can achieve