THE BIG PICTURE: PROCESS CHOICE AT KING SOOPERS BAKERY

In the Big Picture illustration on the next two pages, we literally lifted the roof of the multiproduct bakery King

Soopers, a division of Kroger Company, in Denver, Colorado, to show process choice at work. King Soopers makes

three types of baked goods—custom-decorated cakes, pastries, and bread—with widely varying volumes and

degrees of customization. It uses three different manufacturing processes to meet varying demand.

As you can see from the bar graph of relative volumes to the right on the last page, the custom cake process is a

low-volume process. It starts with basic cakes of the appropriate sizes, which are made from a batch process (not

shown). From that point on, the product is highly customized and cakes are produced to order. The process choice is

best described as a job process. Customers may choose some standard selections from a catalog but often request

one-of-a-kind designs. Frosting colors and cake designs are limited only by the worker’s imagination.

The pastry process has higher volumes but not high enough for each product to have dedicated resources. The

process choice is best described as a batch process. Dough is mixed in relatively small batches and sent to the

proofing room (not shown), where general-purpose equipment feeds the batch of dough through rollers. Special

fixtures, each unique to the product being made, cut the dough into the desired shapes. A great deal of product

variety is handled, with each batch comprising about 1,000 units before a change is made to the next type of pastry.

The bread line is a high-volume process, making 7,000 loaves per hour. The bread is a standardized product

made to stock, and production is not keyed to specific customer orders. The process choice is a line process.

Because of the rigid line flows, it is not a batch process, even though a batch of dough is made each day. Once the

line starts, it must run until empty so that no dough is left in the mixers overnight and no bread is left in the oven.

The line usually does not operate around the clock and, in this sense, is less like a continuous process.