mgt305a3

Note: The following problem is fictitious but employs names of, and news from, real organizations. The idea is to increase the reality of the situation, and to improve your awareness of various industries and organizations.

You and some entrepreneurial investment partners are considering the prospects of opening a small chain of restaurants in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. Your interest is the fast food arena with a focus on hamburgers.

Given your solid training in operations management, you know that a key operating decision you'll make relates to the process employed to produce your output (e.g., towards job or towards flow). You've especially aware that the process choice better match your overall strategy (i.e., do you want to be the low cost leader in the industry, or differentiate yourself along some product or service dimension?).

You (intelligently) decide that an important early step would be to benchmark the process choices of key potential competitors. McDonald's, Wendy's, and Rally's are on your radar. (feel free to add others if you'd like)

Collect information (consider using a mix of written sources and field trips to gather observational data) on processes of these operations. Some factors that you should consider include:

Process choice (towards job or flow)

Volume of output
Variety of products
Selling price of product
Fixed costs and variable costs of production
Speed of production and service
Profit margin
Employees needed to product output (number, skill level needed)
Level of technology (automation, info systems) used in production
Extent to which operating process 'fits' company strategy

Once you've collected your data, organize them in a table. This table will constitute a centerpiece of your analysis.

Some key issues to consider:

Which competitors operate processes towards job and which ones operated processes towards flow? How do you know?
How well does process choice support company strategy?
Should your company lean more towards job or flow? Explain

Write a memo to your partners that expresses your analysis and findings. In your memo, make sure you describe your analytical method. This should include the data that you're using, where you got it (cites), and how you plan to use it in your analysis.

Remember to cite your sources.