McDonalds Fast Food Company:

Operations Management
Subject:
Company Analysis

Pages: Words:
7 1682

Reading time: Study level:

6 min College

Introduction
The McDonalds Fast Food Company has been in operations for more than two
decades. The company is known for fast food products such as burgers, hamburger,
fries, and soft drinks among others. McDonald Corporation is incorporated in the
United States. It is a world leader in the fast food industry (McDonalds Corporation,
2014). The McDonalds Company has more than 500 restaurants across the world.
These restaurants are run as corporations or partners. Key success factors that
propels growth of the company are quality and affordable products served quickly.
The company has maintained an efficient and quality operations management
system. This analytical treatise attempts to explicitly analyze the operations
management system of the McDonalds Company.

Operations management system

Product and service design

The company has diverse products and continues to develop new products that
appeal to their customers. For instance, the fast food store introduced new products
in the year 2013 such as carrot sticks and soft salads. The products are presented in
quality containers. The McDonalds operates on the principle of modern fast food
restaurant which offers take away services to customers (McDonalds Corporation,
2014).

Quality management
Reviewing operations management system of the McDonalds Company is vital to
substantially argue that planning and actualization, which functions simultaneously
to cut down cost, are vital components needed to complete the operation modeling.
The company has an optimal functionality within a competitive advantage
parameter. In order to achieve this, the existing forms of system monitoring are
periodically upgraded to introduce multiple operating system models such as quality
assurance in operation management that is compatible with tracking and analysis
(Heath and Palacher, 2008).

Process and capacity design

The McDonalds Company has a competency measuring system within its strategic
design. The company is run as a corporation and is segmented into fast food, drinks,
and snacks. These structures form part of a production line for different food
products. Decision science in this company is characterized by a consultative
structure consisting of the board of director, who are competent and experienced
business managers. The company relies heavily on operations management in
decision making (Enz, 2009).

Location
The McDonalds’ stores are located in strategic streets across the US and other parts
of the world. Since the business targets mobile customers, the business is known
for its spacious stores with drive through windows, which can accommodate more
than one vehicle at a time. This translates into increased sales volume per day.

Layout design
The McDonald stores are associated with spaciousness and attractive environment.
This strategy has enabled the business to stand out as a lively environment for
customers who may want to unwind in a welcoming place with great food.

Human resource and job design

The business has a dynamic and highly talented workforce. Through the setting of
performance targets for the staff members, the professional attendees always strive
and work harder to satisfy the needs of ever growing demands of their customers.
Besides, the topological structure of the McDonalds consists of communication and
operations management system which help in determining efficient performance
and optimal resource use.

The continuum of increasing the value of quality in operation of the hotel’s human
resources lies in constant training and motivation. The business offers very
competitive salaries to its employees to ensure quality in service delivery to
customers. Through its three sixty degree feedback, the business is in a position to
micro manage the level of employee satisfaction, performance, and efficiency within
the labor provision hierarchy (Brown, 2009).

Supply chain management

Efficiency in the supply chain is very critical in the spheres of quality assurance as
part of a company’s operations management strategy. The McDonalds has an
automated supply chain management system which ensures smooth flow in the
production model of inputs acquisition to distribution of products (Enz, 2009). The
system has a flexible module that balances the control systems, structure, and
scope to ensure sustainability. In order to achieve a sustainable level of efficiency,
the aspect of cost, dependability, speed, quality, and flexibility are incorporated
through value delivery, value addition, and creativity (Heath and Palacher, 2008).

Inventory management
The McDonalds business model is organized as a corporation. The business
operates in the form of chain stores, which function as separate entities. This has
made the business to have higher credibility in the market place. Besides, the
business has an easy logistics in acquiring loans from banks and other financial
institutions. The concept of safety reflects on vulnerability of an organization to
uncertainty or the risk factor and the magnitude of protection in place for the debts
of the business. Due to rational and strategic financial management system, the
McDonalds Company has remained very competitive and sustainable within its
market expansion strategies (McDonalds Corporation, 2014).

Scheduling
The McDonalds Company has a stable scheduling system. As a result, the
McDonalds is a fundamental example of a business that has continued to embrace
quality operations management model that supports communications culture,
efficiency, and optimal resource use in its service delivery to customers.

Maintenance
The maintenance process for the McDonalds is inclusive of the scientific aspects
such as a technical process of understanding the operations and proper use of
statistical tools. These tools are critical in monitoring and managing the logistics
behind the business functions. These variables are properly balanced as indicated in
the efficiency of the business process (Heath and Palacher, 2008). The process
operates on the periphery of the soft skills involving the timeless vision of
organizational principles, defining value of the business, determining requirements,
clarifying the vision, building teams, mitigating task, resolving issues, and providing
direction in the business logistics.

Analysis
Since the beginning of the McDonalds, the company has always labored to improve
on efficiency through cost cutting. This eventually translates into efficiency and
increased productivity in terms of optimal resource use for optimal output level with
the current profit level of $60 million per annum. Besides, the operation management
system at the McDonalds Company acts as the engine that supports the business
strategy in order to comprehensively verify rationale supporting current, predicted,
and actual results for every introduction of a quality function (McDonalds
Corporation, 2014). Specifically, operations systems are employed in the McDonalds
Company to monitor and increase productivity at minimal error margins. This is
possible because this model of operations management system allows for
operations process’ competitiveness as it cut down unnecessary overhead costs
from wastes and under-utilization.

The element of cost in the McDonalds’ operations strategy has ensured efficiency in
the use of resources to serve the needs of customers. On the other hand, the
element of flexibility has made the internal business environment for the business
sustainable since it is flexible to the changes in the supply and demand of the
production factors. The element of speed is directly related to the output of each
employee in the McDonalds. In addition, quality in service delivery among the
employees has ensured profit maximization and business growth over the years.

The output of the organization in terms of

business goals
It is apparent that the proper matching of soft skills such as team building,
organizational effectiveness, leadership, decision making, problem solving, creativity,
flexibility, and team building are essential in measuring quality of an operations
management design. The success and failure of a business entity are dependent on
the effectiveness and quality of the operations management since it determines
integration, implementation, and control of a business model.

In order to strike an optimal performance balance, the process of the quality

operations management system at the McDonalds has a clear overview of
budgeting, objectivity, and scheduling as indicated in the stratified customer
management system (McDonalds Corporation, 2014). Besides, the company has an
efficient operation management model that simultaneously fuses quality aspects
into a unit, which operates independently, but delivers results that are dependent on
the success of each process. It is apparent that this company has efficient
knowledge and experience in uniqueness of products and services, in terms of their
requirement in order to produce high quality fast food products.

The current operations management system

Skills required in supporting a business strategy plan are found in operation
management model of the McDonalds Company, which functions as an implementer
and driver of business decisions. The McDonalds Company’s operations
management system incorporates planning, development, implementation,
rediscovery, and discovery. Reflectively, the process captures organization chart,
process map, compliance requirements, review structure, and resources employed
within a specified period of time. The system has remained efficient due to
consultative decision science which has ensured company’s survival for more than
two decades. Through implementation of the strategic operations management
elements such as speed, cost, flexibility, and quality, the McDonalds has
substantially gained from the reliability aspect as compared to its competitors
(Kaynak, 2007).

Since clients are able to receive quality, affordable, and flexible services within a
shorter time, the company stands to gain from customer satisfaction and referrals.
The business is geared to reap maximum benefits from economies of scale due to
increased capacity as more customers respond to the referrals.

Existing problems and weaknesses

The aspect of speed manager response rate monitors utilization throughout the
production and marketing process. Speed assists in tracking costs and efficiency of
labor productivity tools such as machinery, human labor, and optimal use of these
aspects at minimal cost. Besides, it tracks externality and internality variables that
are dependent on speed of performance, such as efficiency in the period between
production and delivery, response by customer, and quality of product released into
the market (Kaynak, 2007). Despite having this efficient operations management
system, the company has not fully established a mechanism of monitoring progress
at micro level and majorly depends on macro auditing in decision making. Thus, it
has to deal with the risk of internal fraud and redundancy.
The managers leading production implementation strategies frequently record
dismal performance due to lack of the insight to integrate micro decisions alongside
the macro decisions made by the company’s board of directors. Therefore, the
success of the McDonalds’ operations management system will be dependent on
soft artful skills such as creativity and communication in addition to technical
aspects such as management principles.

References
Brown, S. (2009). Strategic operations management. New York, NY: Heinemann.
Web.

Enz, C. (2009). Concepts and cases of strategic management in hospitality industry.

London, UK: John Wiley and Sons. Web.

Heath, R., & Palacher, M. (2008). Strategic Management in fast Food Organizations:
A Public Challenge Policy. New York, NY: Sage Books. Web.

Kaynak, H. (2007). The relationship between total quality management practices and
their effects on firm performance. Journal of Operations Management, 21(4), 405–
435. Web.

McDonalds Corporation. (2014). The big taste. Web.