Kristen's Cookies Company Case Study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

FIRST PHASE PRODUCTION

SECOND PHASE PRODUCTION

TIME

EQUIPMENT

CONCLUSION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Kristen's cookies company has the opportunity to turn a small home-based organization into a successful business. The niche market of high quality cookies, baked to order, and catering to college students has the ability to be a successful endeavor. The current plan shows that there is a basic operation that has the capacity to be profitable but possibly time consuming. There are some issues due to limitations of equipment but adequate planning and preparation will allow the company to overcome these obstacles. This analysis outlines the processes in detail and the potential opportunities to change or adapt the business processes for maximization of resources and profit.

"Kristen's cookie" was born out of a necessity to feed hungry college students late at night. College students are prone to put off their most important projects until the last minute, which usually means the night before the exam or project is due. This is usually accompanied by buying huge amounts of snacks to fuel the late night studying sessions. Kristen's cookies is geared to attract the hungry student away from the convenience store and provide them with quality, unique cookies that cannot be bought in the store. After all of the traditional bakeries are closed, Kristen cookies is operating and available to provide cookies with unique individualized ingredient combinations fresh out of the oven. Following with the four dimensions of operations processes, this business is a medium to high volume business. It has high repeatability, systemization, capital intensive, low cost units and specialization. The variety is medium high. It is flexible in the ingredients that it offers to the customers, well defined, standardized, matches customer needs, and has a low unit cost. Variation in demand is to be determined. It should have a low variation in demand. It should be stable, routine, and predictable, with low unit costs. The visibility aspect should be medium low. It is standardized, has low contact skills, high staff utilization, centralized with low unit costs. Kristen's cookies also falls in line with the five operations performance objectives. It has a high quality product, which will give it a high competitive advantage. Instead of just going to the grocery store to buy store brand cookies, college students will receive the highest and freshest ingredients. The speed might be a problem due to the limitations of the oven but by managing expectations, Kristen's cookies can make customers wait for perfection. Kristen's cookies has a dependability advantage because of the fact that the orders are received directly by email and have a low probability of being misplaced. The company can only service a small amount of customers per night so for the customers that will receive the cookies

KRISTEN"S COOKIES PROCESS

Activity Rerce Cycle Time Start Time Finish Time

Order Entry E-mail 0 minutes 00:00 00:00

Wash/Mix Kristen 6 minutes 00:00 06:00

Spooning Kristen 2 minutes 06:00 08:00

Heat Oven Roommate 1 minute 08:00 09:00

Bake Oven 9 minutes 09:00 18:00

Remove Cookies Roommate 0 minutes 18:00 18:00

Cool Tray 5 minutes 18:00 23:00

Pack/Collect $$ Roommate

3 minutes 23:00 26:00

TOTAL OPERATION

* Operating time = 240 minutes (4 hours)

* 22 dozen cookies in 4 hours.
*

Order Completion Time

1 dozen 26 minutes

2 dozen 36 minutes

3 dozen 46 minutes

4 dozen 56 minutes

5 dozen 66 minutes

6 dozen 76 minutes

7 dozen 86 minutes

8 dozen 96 minutes

9 dozen 106 minutes

10 dozen 116 minutes

11 dozen 126 minutes

12 dozen 136 minutes

13 dozen 146 minutes

14 dozen 156 minutes

15 dozen 166 minutes

16 dozen 176 minutes

17 dozen 186 minutes

18 dozen 196 minutes

19 dozen 206 minutes

20 dozen 216 minutes

21 dozen 226 minutes

22 dozen 236 minutes

All costs of ingredients and boxes for each dozen are the same. The total time is 6 (wash and mix) + 2 (spooning) + 1 (set timer on oven) + 2 (packing time) + 1 (process payment) = 12 minutes. For a two dozen order, total time is 17 minutes. For a three dozen order, total time is 22 minutes.

First Phase of Production

The first group of steps takes six minutes to complete. These steps include; receiving the order, washing the electric mixing bowl and beakers from the previous batch; putting the correct ingredients into the mixing bowl, and turning on the mixer to mix the ingredients. Since the purpose of the business is to make the cookies completely fresh upon order, one way to improve the timing of this section would be to increase the number of electric mixing bowls and ovens. Another point to note is that if the customer buys three dozen of the same cookie combination or if three customers buy the same cookie combination in order, then Kristen's time can be improved by mixing three-dozen's worth of cookie dough at the same time. Therefore a sales strategy to improve the time that it takes to