Kudler Foods Operations Management
...of Phoenix
Kudler Foods Operations Management
As part of its strategic growth plan to attract new customers, Kudler Fine Foods, a gourmet food shop based in southern California, has decided to contract with local organic farmers to provide fresh organic produce to its three existing stores. Owner, Kathy Kudler's incentive for this plan lays in consumer trends which is expects the organic foods industry to grow from $41.2 Billion to $62 Billion in just three years (Progressive Grocer, 2006). Success of this initiative will depend on the careful analysis of affected operations management processes, supply chain activities, and quality control systems. This paper will attempt to identify Kudler's current key business processes, and explain how the new strategic growth plan would affect those processes. This paper will also describe how Kudler's supply chain would be affected by this decision. Finally, it will describe the quality control tools and performance standards that Kudler would need to put in place to ensure the effectiveness of its operations.
Kudler Fine Foods has several important business operations management processes to consider before it can successfully implement the decision to start contracting with local growers of organic produce. According to Gomez and Balkin, "Operations management is the process an organization uses to obtain the materials or ideas for the product it provides, the process of transforming them into the product, and the process of providing the final product to a user". (Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 2005, chap 15). If Kudler is to be successful in its approach of using local growers for their organic foods product line, it will have to make some strategic process changes. Those processes chances include purchasing, inventorying management and forecasting, delivery planning, packaging, and legal considerations....
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