Kudler Fine Foods(Kff)
Kudler Fine Foods have been in operation for several years and is now in the position to focus on internal processes and how those can be improved to deliver increased value to the customer. One of the new initiatives is to start contracting with local growers of organic produce. The Kudler’s management team needs to alter the way the stores operate to incorporate in the most efficient way the supply of organic produce (Apollo Group Inc, 2005).
Through market research, KFF has identified the need to provide its customers with organic produce. Now the operations managers have to plan for the level of produce needed, availability, the time involved in acquiring these produces, the capacity or ability of the producers to supply the product during a given period to accommodate demand, the location of the producers or suppliers and cost. In addition, the operations managers have to analyze the available production methods to evaluate how efficiently they can achieve the operating objectives, oversee the selection and reliability of suppliers and the quality of the produce (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin, 2002, p.370). Moreover, the operations managers have to find out the amount of produce kept on hand (inventory) to be maintained in the stores. They also need to figure out a re-ordering system, by determining a minimum level of inventory before inputs are reorder (fixed-point reordering) or based on time (fixed-interval reordering system), to help keep inventory levels more or less constants (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin, 2002, p.371).
Statistical processes or quality control tools that operations managers of KFF can use to monitor, evaluate and improve the system of contracting growers of organic produce include check sheets, Pareto analysis, process flow analysis, cause and effect diagrams, process capability measures and control charts (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin, 2002, p.374).
The check sheet is a simple document, a blank form which is typically divided...
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