OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY

Read the following case stud ca!efull and answe! all the "uestions #elow$

%OME&STY'E COO(IESThe Co)*an

The baking company is located in a small town in New York State. The bakery is run by
two brothers. The company employs fewer than 200 people, mainly blue-collar workers, and
theatmosphere is informal.

The Product

The company s only product is soft cookies, of which it makes o!er "0 !arieties. #arger
companies,such as Nabisco, Sunshine, and $eebler, ha!e traditionally produced biscuit cookies,
in which mostof the water has been baked out, resulting in crisp cookies. The cookies ha!e no
additi!es or preser!ati!es. The high %uality of the cookies has enabled the company to de!elop a
strong marketniche for its product.

The Custo)e!s

The cookies are sold in con!enience stores and supermarkets throughout New York,
&onnecticut,and New 'ersey. The company markets its cookies as (good food()no additi!es or
preser!ati!es) and this appeals to a health-conscious segment of the market. *any customers are
o!er +" years of age, and prefer a cookie that is soft and not too sweet. arents with young
children also buy thecookies.

The P!oduction P!ocess

The company has two continuous band o!ens that it uses to bake the cookies. The
production process is called a batch processing system. t begins as soon as management gets
orders fromdistributors. These orders are used to schedule production. t the start of each shift, a
list of thecookies to be made that day is deli!ered to the person in charge of mi/ing. That person
checks amaster list, which indicates the ingredients needed for each type of cookie, and enters
thatinformation into the computer. The computer then determines the amount of each ingredient
needed,according to the %uantity of cookies ordered, and relays that information to storage silos
locatedoutside the plant where the main ingredients flour, sugar, and cake flour1 are stored.
Theingredients are automatically sent to giant mi/ing machines where the ingredients are
combinedwith proper amounts of eggs, water, and fla!ourings. fter the ingredients ha!e been
mi/ed, the batter is poured into a cutting machine where it is cut into indi!idual cookies. The
cookies are thendropped onto a con!eyor belt and transported through one of two o!ens. illed
cookies, such asapple, date, and raspberry, re%uire an additional step for filling and folding. The
no filled cookies are cut on a diagonal rather than round. The diagonal-cut cookies re%uire
lessspace than straight-cut cookies, and the result is a higher le!el of producti!ity. n addition,
thecompany recently increased the length of each o!en by 2" feet, which also increased the rate
of production. s the cookies emerge from the o!ens, they are fed onto spiral cooling racks 20
feet high and 3 feetwide. s the cookies come off the cooling racks, workers place the cookies
into bo/es manually