Opening any kind of business requires a great deal of patience, dedication and perseverance. Lynn Leach jumped into the world of restaurants with both feet when she decided to open her own quick service restaurant. Truthfully, the industry is filled with stories of people who dove in, got knocked down, but pull themselves back up.

In the small town of Wilmington, Ohio, Lynn opened a Skyline Chili franchise. The town of 12,000 people has embraced the location and Lynn’s friendly business practices built upon strong customer service and delicious offerings. Recently, Lynn celebrated the restaurant’s one-year anniversary. But getting started was no easy task. “I hadn’t worked in a restaurant since high school and here I was, opening a restaurant”, she said. Skyline Chili is a Southern Ohio-based restaurant chain that serves “Cincinnati Style” chili. This rather unique blend of chili and seasonings is typically served over spaghetti and hot dogs and is a favourite in the Midwest. With over 100 stores, Lynn’s franchise is somewhat typical of their small town locations.

Lynn calls her foray into the restaurant business as a “great learning experience”. Fortunately, she had a lot support from Skyline’s corporate office. But, much of what needed to be done was driven by her. “My ultimate goal” she said, “is to help people and make them feel good – people’s careers, our customers, and the community”.

First, she had to determine just how many employees she would need before ever opening doors. “We did scores of interviews”, she said, and hired some really good people”. However, she discovered during her first year of business that some who may have interviewed well were not necessarily the best employees. After turning over about half the staff, she now feels she has the right people in place. But every employee must be properly trained. They have to learn the menu, how to properly greet and serve the guest, handle their transaction at the cash register, and keep the entire restaurant fastidiously clean. In addition to hiring, she had to plan the marketing for the grand opening and order the initial inventory for the restaurant. “All this took a great deal of planning”, she said. “From a to z, we thought things through and how best to get them done”.

Once the operation was up and running, Lynn had to pay attention to her costs as well as her staff. Form a cost standpoint, she discovered that there were some very efficient steps the restaurant could contain the expenses. One idea implemented was to stop serving half-pint cartons of milk to children. It was found that more half the carton would be wasted and thrown away. However, by serving a small amount in a glass, the restaurant wasted very little. To keep tabs on all the raw ingredients, Lynn conducts an inventory every Monday – literally counting every hot dog bun, chees, chili, onions, etc. “It’s painstaking work, but highly necessarily so we know what we have and what we don’t”, she said. The Monday inventory is how we now what we need to order and when we need it”. Lynn is not alone in her approach. Successful restaurateurs understand that counting food costs down to the penny is critical. Restaurants should look at every shift of operation with a before, during, and after approach to not only monitor inventory costs, but also identify important best practices throughout the facility.

For her team of servers, cooks, and cleaners, Lynn believes in creating a fun, yet productive atmosphere. “Positive feedback is important”, she said. “I ‘m not going to yell at an employee in front of everyone”. Instead, she counsels employees when performance is not up to par or the quality of work is suffering. “We do role-plays”, she said, where we ask each other how you would like to be treated if you were the customer”. These role-plays demonstrate the proper way to engage with customers and provide a safe training ground to fine-tune the servers’ skills. For those employees who go above and beyond with their service – whether to customers or to co-workers – Lynn provides a gift card. “When an employee goes out of her way to serve the customer”, she said, “they should be rewarded”.

QUESTION :

Which of Katz’s managerial skills (technical, human, and conceptual) does Lynn seem to use most often? Why?

Project 7: Evaluating Recruiting Sources

The purpose of this exercise is to (a) conduct an in-depth analysis of various recruitment sources and (b) recommend the ideal mix of sources for an organization.

Using the data above, compute the following:

• Cost per hire
• Cost per 6 month of survival
• Cost per 1 year of survival
• Cost per above average performer

What is your best source and why?

What is the worst source and why?

If no one source could supply more than 40% of the total number of hires needed, what mix of recruitment sources would you recommend and why?

Question 1

Stephen wants to cultivate perishable goods in Sogakope; a business which he has saved money for. Discuss five(5) post-operative problems he is likely to encounter.  

Critical Thinking

The global marketplace has witnessed an increased pressure from customers and competitors in manufacturing as well as service sector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002). Due to the rapidly changing global marketplace only those companies will be able to survive that will deliver products of good quality at cheaper rate and to achieve their goal companies try to improve performance by focusing on cost cutting, increasing productivity levels, quality and guaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers (Raouf, 1994).

Increased global competition leads the industry to increasing efficiency by means of economies of scale and internal specialization so as to meet market conditions in terms of flexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995). The changes in the present competitive business environment are characterized by profound competition on the supply side and keen indecisive in customer requirements on the demand side. These changes have left their distinctive marks on the different aspect of the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). With this increasing global economy, cost effective manufacturing has become a requirement to remain competitive.

To meet all the challenges organizations try to introduce different manufacturing and supply techniques. Management of organizations devotes its efforts to reduce the manufacturing costs and to improve the quality of product. To achieve this goal, different manufacturing and supply techniques have been employed. The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed the adoption of world-class, lean and integrated manufacturing strategies that have drastically changed the way manufacturing firm’s leads to improvement of manufacturing performance (Fullerton and McWatters, 2002).

secondary available data on internet and answer the following questions.

Question:

1. Why Companies adopted Lean Thinking and JIT model?

2. Discuss major types of Waste, companies has to keep in mind during production.

3. Assess the reasons for using lean thinking (suitable examples), what are the benefits from Suppliers to end users?

4. Due to COVID 19 emergency do you think agile supply chain is the right concept in this kind of situation? Give reason with example.

The Answer should be within 4- 5 pages.

The Answer must follow the outline points below:

• Lean Thinking and JIT Concept

• Agile Supply chain

• Their Main functions

• Reasons with suitable Examples

• Reference  

About the Company

Almarai is an integrated organization spanning its food and beverage products from dairy farms through to retail stores.The other brands are known as “ALMARAI”, “ALYOUM”, “SMOOTHY” and “ZADY”. Almarai company limited, a dairy company, provides nutritious food and beverages in Saudi Arabia. It provides dairy liquids, including flavored milks and lactose-free milk; yoghurts and desserts; food products, such as cheese spreads, cheese slices, butter, ghee, cream, and mozzarella; fruit juices; bakery products, including breads, ready-to-eat pastries, and biscuits; and poultry products.

Almarai is the largest integrated dairy foods company in the world, with a reputation for quality that is unmatched within the gulf countries. Almarai began in 1976 under the leadership of HH Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer, as it remains to this day. The company's headquarters are based in Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Almarai company extends throughout the Arabian Peninsula, leading and influencing the agricultural, dairy processing and food distribution industries.

Logistics In terms of the scale of asserts, the miles cover, and the quantities deliver, Almarai’s transport and logistics division is larger than any logistics company in the Middle East. The division comprises over 1,300 trucks and 1,400 cold trailers. The farming division runs 600 trucks as well. This wholly -Owned logistics operation ensures that products are delivered on time and in perfect condition.
Over 3.000 T&L employees look after transport, warehousing, maintenance and planning. Our logistics team remains committed to improving road safety. It is imperative that our products are
delivered to consumers fresh and within a very tight timeframe, and so our attention to detail when it comes to scheduling and temperature control is unrivalled.
  
Managing supply chain Vertical integration requires Almarai’s stringent quality standards to be met or surpassed at every stage. First-class ingredients are sourced from around the world before passing through industry leading manufacturing facilities in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Almarai import 1.5 million tons of animal feed annually, an increasing proportion of which is supplied from our own arable farming assets around the world. These are managed according to international best practice principles, ensuring that that our dairy and poultry farms consume only the highest quality feed.
Supply chain design Supply chain design process is helpful to enhance the profitability and the shareholder valuation. The management of Almarai requires to follow the market and the sourcing strategies. This will generate the optimum financial performance. Supply chain design needs to manage the constraints and margins. By following these regulations and practices in their business, the management of the organisation can earn higher profitability. It is argued that there is uncertainty as well as risk in demand and supply and these are required to the organisation during the designing of supply chain. On the other hand, Almarai needs to balance the short term and longterm plans and objectives. Therefore, it can be inferred that supply chain design requires to provide the organisation a detailed insights, which would shows how the demand can achieve the business profitability. In addition, with the help of supply chain designs, opportunities to increase the profit can be identified. Moreover, supply chain cost can reduce the consumer responsiveness.

Figure : Supply chain design

Responding to rapid business growth, food and beverage producer Almarai Company expanded its workforce to more than 20,000 employees. Yet the company’s paper-based, manual HR processes caused inefficiencies, inaccurate data, and excessive delays in handling employee and manager requests. By deploying SAP® software, Saudi Arabia–based Almarai automated its HR processes, helping to reduce cycle times and costs and increase employee satisfaction.
Identification of major operation areas and the competitive advantage It is stated that the operation areas are critical to the competitive advantage of an organisation. There are five major operational areas, which can gain the competitive advantage of Almarai. These operational areas are such as quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost.
It is mentioned that quality can enhance the competitive advantage of the organisation. As a result, it can be stated that the organisation can set out their targeted consumers. In addition, Almarai can reduce the price of their manufacturing goods. However, the speed aspect can deliver their products to the consumers more quickly. This aspect can also offer superior consumer services, which focus to the after sales services. Hence, it can be mentioned that the organisational risks can be reduced.
Dependability is helpful to identify the level of stocks of the organisation. In order to measure the level of stock of the organisation, Almarai requires to improve the working conditions as well as the internal maintaining facilities. This would in turn save the money of the organisation due to the lack of disruption. The workplace flexibility can be categorised into four sections such as product, mix of the goods, quantity and the delivery.Almarai has focused to the quantity and the time of delivery in order to satisfy the consumers’ needs. This will improve the product development approach for the development of new products. Evaluate the performance of each area
In order to measure the performance of quality, speed, flexibility, dependability and cost for gaining the competitive advantage, the organisation has used some specific tools such as capacity planning, inventory management, supply chain design and the quality management. Capacity planning is helpful to forecast the budget of a business in order to meet the present operations and can meet the business objectives. As a result, based on the predicted budget, Almarai can set out the price of the products and the quality aspect can be improved. Moreover, capacity planning is helpful to identify the future capacity needs. This will in turn increase the production of an organisation. It can monitor the cost structure of the manufactured goods.
Supply chain management is a network, which can move the product from one stage to another. In addition, this can increase the customer service of the organisation. Therefore, it can be mentioned that Almarai aimed to improve the customer service of the organisation by delivering the products to the customers within the proposed date. Therefore, the speed aspect can perform successfully in order to gain the competitive advantage of an organisation.
It can be recommended that Almarai requires to follow some relevant marketing dynamics such as speed, dependability, flexibility, cost and quality, which can gain the competitive advantage of the business. In this respect, it can be stated that if Almarai would not be able to deliver the products to the consumers, then the good will of the organisation towards the consumers would be declined. The dairy farm has planned to set out the price of the product affordable. They used modern technology and updated techniques in the manufacturing process. As a result, it can be inferred that the quality of products would be improved. This would be helpful to gain the competitive advantage of the organisation. In this respect, it can be stated that Almarai has the competitive advantage in the manufacturing of dairy products based on the level of stock.
Capacity management can efficiently estimate this level of stock of an organisation. Therefore, it can be mentioned that the productivity and service quality of the organisation will be increased.




Questions



1.What are the challenges faced in logistics and transportation?

2.How the supply chain design helps to manage the constraints and margins?

3.What are the dynamics followed to satisfy the customer needs?

4.Which is focused to reduce the organizational risk?

5.What are the recommendations for gaining competitive advantage of the business?

Developing a strategy for your firm is key to being successful in Airline. Your strategy will serve as your firm’s “roadmap” throughout the simulation. This assignment will guide you through the planning process. Be sure to read the case and the section on “The Strategic Management Process” in the Airline manual before you begin. Respond to the following questions to help you in planning your strategy.

Explain each question based on project management and The Critical-Chain Approach.

1. How is time wasted in the management of projects?
2. Distinguish between project and feeder buffers?
3. Why are buffers not the same as slack?

1. Identify with explanation any FOUR factors to be considered when selecting the location of a wine distribution center (Maximum 200 words)

Scenario: Top management brings in a policy that all the concerned employees need to be consulted in the upcoming training programs.

What learning theory (e.g. reinforcement theory, needs theory, social learning theory, goal setting theory,expectancy theory)

How can trainers use this learning theory effectively in training? (e.g. chunking – breaking training modules into parts, setting specific, challenging goals, inform trainees the benefits of training etc)

SARAH LUBBERS AND CHRIS RUSCHE, GRAND VALLEY
STATE UNIVERSITY
Farmers Restaurant is a full service restaurant offering a variety
of breakfast, lunch, and dinner items. Currently, Kristin Davis is
the general manager for the Farmers Restaurant located in the
Grand Rapids/ Wyoming metro area of Michigan. Since becoming
manager, Kristin has faced some difficulties with ordering the
right amounts of food items for the restaurant. Because of this,
there are some weeks the restaurant has a surplus of menu items
that are no longer fresh, and must be discarded. At other times,
the restaurant has experienced shortages of some items. The
fact that inventory accounts for an average cost of 26 percent
of the restaurant’s total revenues underscores the importance
of managing inventory. Kristin would like to find a way to ensure
that she is maintaining the proper amount of inventory. Customer
counts at Kristin’s restaurant have been declining recently, so
one of Kristin’s greatest focuses is to keep current customers and
attract new customers. She believes that a key aspect of this is
having all of the items on the menu in stock.
The restaurant industry is competitive. In the Grand Rapids/
Wyoming metro area alone there are over 1,600 restaurants.
Some of Farmers Restaurant’s most serious competitors are IHOP,
Applebee’s, and Big Boy, all of which are located within 20 miles
of the Farmers Restaurant, so customers have many alternatives
from which to choose.
Online inventory systems are used to assist restaurant man-
agers in determining on-hand inventory and gauging how well
the restaurant is controlling food costs. The fiscal week for Farm-
ers Restaurant starts on Thursday and ends on Wednesday of the
following week. Each Wednesday, the manager physically counts
the inventory on hand and enters the data into the online inven-
tory system. The computer software system then compares the
on-hand inventory for that week, the amount of food ordered,
and the inventory on hand for the end of the previous week with
the sales for the current week. By doing so, it is able to deter-
mine a total food cost. The manager compares this cost with the
benchmark cost to see how well the restaurant has been man-
aging its inventory. This is one of the most important numbers
to managers at the Farmers Restaurant because it accounts for
approximately 30 percent of total costs in terms of a store’s cost
structure.
The computer software system also compares the total cost of
food on hand with the total amount of sales for that week and
computes a percentage of on-hand inventories. As a guideline, the
company has set a standard of having between 29 and 36 percent
for its on-hand inventory level. The company feels that this level of
inventory is an appropriate average to ensure quality food that is
fresh and within expiration. Lastly, it is better to keep the inventory
at a minimum level to ensure the accuracy and ease of inventory
counts.
The Farmers Restaurant Kristin manages has been running
above average in terms of food costs. For this reason, her boss
has become concerned with the performance of the ordering sys-
tem she is using at her restaurant. Kristin has been using her intu-
itition to decide how much product to order despite the fact that
the product order sheets provide a moving average usage of each
product. Kristin bases her inventory management on her intuition
because she does not understand how to utilize the moving aver-
age forecasting technique when placing orders. An additional
complication with ordering inventory is that each item is packed in
multiple quantities, so she cannot order the exact amount that she
needs. Her boss requested that she create a more accurate way
of ordering food and to report back to him in one month. Kristin is
worried that if she cuts inventory levels too low she will run out of
products, which may result in a decrease in customer counts.
After Kristin met with her boss, she began to think about what
changes she could make. She knows that inventory has been a
weak point for her, but she remembers one of her employees talk-
ing about inventory management from one of his college courses.
Kristin decides to ask the employee if he would be willing to help
her try and come up with a better way for her to order products.
Kristin tells him how the ordering system works, shows him the
ordering form, and relates the given information.
Suppose you have been asked to work with Kristin to improve
inventory ordering.

Questions
1. Describe the importance of inventory management as it
relates to the Farmers Restaurant.

2. What ordering system would be best for this situation?

3. Given the following information, provide an example of how
much of Farmers Sausage Gravy Mix should be ordered. You are
doing the order for Thursday. Also, Kristin would like a service
level of 95 percent, and you have found that there is a standard
deviation of 3.5 units per week, and a moving average weekly
demand of 35 servings. The gravy mix comes in packs of two
servings. There are currently three packs in inventory.

4. Given the above information and an on-hand inventory of
12, determine the risk of stock out at the end of initial lead
time and at the end of the second lead time. The lead time is
2 days and orders are placed once a week.

5. The supplier Kristin uses is located in Ohio. Why might Kristin
consider dealing with a nearby supplier instead of the one
in Ohio? What reasons might there be for not switching
suppliers?

What are some recommendations for a workplace design (considering design for routine operations as well as spills, leaks, and emergencies) specifically for machine operators? In this case, looking at machine operators who deal with machinery that processes from raw material to finished goods.

Look up ONET for one of IKEA's jobs: retail department manager/first line supervisor. What are the main topic areas/headings on the job description summary? How could it be used to help IKEA managers and their HRD?

Suppose you are marketing Self checkout carts to India. what will be the major problems or resistance to product acceptance. Consider 5 factors affecting the rate in which new product will be adopted.
1. Relative advantage
2. compatibility
3.Complexity
4. Divisibility
5. Communicability