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Operations Management Kudler Fine Foods

Operations Management Kudler Fine Foods
University of Phoenix

Operations Management Kudler Fine Foods
Kudler Fine Foods, a gourmet food shop, was founded by Kathy Kudler in 1998. Kathy established Kudler Fine Foods to provide consumers with a store that stocks a wide variety of the freshest ingredients and tools for gourmet cooking. Kudler Fine Foods currently has 3 store locations located on the central west coast of California. As a growth strategy, to attract new customers and keep existing customers, Kudler Fine Foods has decided to contract with local organic farmers to provide fresh organic produce to its stores. Success of the direct from local growers' initiative depends on the careful analysis of affected business processes, supply chain activities, and quality control systems.
Business Processes
The business processes at Kudler that could be affected by the decision to contract with organic growers are purchasing, inventorying, delivery planning, packaging, and legal considerations. Currently, the purchasing of inventory is separated between the three stores and each individual store handles its own purchasing. The department manager of each store determines when, how, and who the store purchases from. Going forward, Kudler Fine Foods will need to change its purchasing process because the process would not be efficient if individual store managers purchased from the growers separately. The purchasing process should be consolidated into a single department that does all the purchasing for efficiency, cost savings, and process management reasons. "You make better and faster decisions by consolidating key business information and making it available at-a-glance" (Baron, 2006). Other processes which will be affected are delivery planning, packaging, and legal considerations. The delivery process of inventory from organic growers will need to be implemented. How will the produce get to the stores and in what time-frame? "Plastic...