Operations Management: Kudler Fine Foods

RUNNING HEADER: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Operations Management
University of Phoenix
MBA 502

Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Kudler Business Processes 4
Figure1. Management Responsibilities of Operational Processes 4
Supply Chain 7
Quality Control and Performance Standards 9
Conclusion 10
References 11

Introduction

Kudler Fine Foods is an upscale specialty food store located in the San Diego, Metropolitan area, founded in 1998 by Kathy Kudler. Its mission is to provide customers with the finest selection of foodstuffs, wines and related needs in an unparalleled environment (University of Phoenix, 2008). In keeping with its mission, Kudler has decided to start contracting with growers of organic produce.…show more content…
TQM is based on the belief that all of an organizations’ activities need to be focused on improving the product (Gomez, Mejia and Balkin, 2002). With the implementation of moving from non-organic to organic produce, Kudler should focus on kaizen. The principle for kaizen is a continuous improvement in the organizations production system from numerous small, incremental improvements in production processes (Gomez, Mejia and Balkin, 2002). Kudler needs to establish relationships with a few local organic growers to ensure there will be no disruption to its supply of organically grown produce – it may focus on geographically locating them near its stores – and guarantee a competitive price. Kudler will also need to slowly phase in the organic produce because there is the possibility that customers may not accept the higher prices and there are no statistics available to support inventory levels. Finally, Kudler may want to move the produce to the front of the store to give it exposure to customers thereby increasing its popularity and encouraging the purchase of the product. Once these processes are in place and Kudler has quantified the data, Kudler may want to implement more and more resources to organic over non-organic…show more content…
system would be instrumental in this process. Finally, Kudler should adopt the total quality management process known as Kaizen. This approach is a continuous improvement in the organizations production system from numerous small, incremental improvements in production processes.
References

Chase, Richard B., Jacobs, F. Robert., & Aquilano, Nicholas J. (2005). Operations management for competitive advantage (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Gomez-Mejia, Luis R., & Balkin, David B. (2002). Management (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Harrison Christy, (2008). The (still) high cost of organic food. Eartheasy. Retrieved July 19, 2008, from http://www.eartheasy.com/article_high_cost_organic_food.htm
University of Phoenix. (2008). Virtual organization portal: Kudler Fine Foods [Computer Software]. Retrieved July 19, 2008, from University of Phoenix, Simulation, MBA 502 - Managing the Business Enterprise Web site.

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[1] Inventory is ordered once it reaches a pre-assigned level (Gomez, Bejia and Malkin,