Operations Management - Planning & Control in Mcdonald's
Operations Management & Decision Making – Planning And Control Assignment
The organisation I have chosen to examine from an operations management and decision making standpoint is McDonald’s, a worldwide chain of fast food restaurants, which are run either by a franchise, an affiliate or by the corporation itself. There are over 31,000 branches of McDonald’s worldwide1. It is estimated these restaurants serve a collective 47 million customers daily2. The restaurants mainly sell customers traditional fast food fare such as burgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, fizzy drinks and milkshakes, in addition to breakfast, dessert items and (in response to growing health concerns in the consumer marketplace) healthier items such as salads and fruit. As of 2008 the organisation employed 400,0003 and held total assets of US$29 billion as of 20094.
I have identified the main inputs to McDonald’s process to be materials (e.g. the ingredients used to prepare their food – burger patties, cheese slices, vegetables, burger buns, mix for milkshake and ice cream, chicken and fish fillets, potatoes for French fries etc., in addition to materials required for packaging the products when being delivered from store to store via cardboard boxes or being sold to customers via happy meal boxes, meal bags etc.), facilities (the buildings used to house branches of the restaurant, buildings used to house the organisation’s offices, the equipment in the restaurants used to prepare and cook food, the buildings used to house the company’s production plants where elements of the products are mass produced and the equipment therein) and staff (those that work inside the restaurants in a variety of different roles in addition to those who work outside the restaurants in office jobs). The eventual outputs are products that can be sold to customers (the food they will be served in the restaurants) as well as the office paperwork which will be required to run the company (which will be handled by
The organisation I have chosen to examine from an operations management and decision making standpoint is McDonald’s, a worldwide chain of fast food restaurants, which are run either by a franchise, an affiliate or by the corporation itself. There are over 31,000 branches of McDonald’s worldwide1. It is estimated these restaurants serve a collective 47 million customers daily2. The restaurants mainly sell customers traditional fast food fare such as burgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, fizzy drinks and milkshakes, in addition to breakfast, dessert items and (in response to growing health concerns in the consumer marketplace) healthier items such as salads and fruit. As of 2008 the organisation employed 400,0003 and held total assets of US$29 billion as of 20094.
I have identified the main inputs to McDonald’s process to be materials (e.g. the ingredients used to prepare their food – burger patties, cheese slices, vegetables, burger buns, mix for milkshake and ice cream, chicken and fish fillets, potatoes for French fries etc., in addition to materials required for packaging the products when being delivered from store to store via cardboard boxes or being sold to customers via happy meal boxes, meal bags etc.), facilities (the buildings used to house branches of the restaurant, buildings used to house the organisation’s offices, the equipment in the restaurants used to prepare and cook food, the buildings used to house the company’s production plants where elements of the products are mass produced and the equipment therein) and staff (those that work inside the restaurants in a variety of different roles in addition to those who work outside the restaurants in office jobs). The eventual outputs are products that can be sold to customers (the food they will be served in the restaurants) as well as the office paperwork which will be required to run the company (which will be handled by
References: 1- McDonald’s Publication (2007) Corporate FAQ [online], McDonald’s Corporation , http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/aboutus/faq.aspx [Accessed 9th February 2010]. 6- Bridging the Gap (2006) The McDonald’s supply-chain saga [online]The National Provisioner, http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5827895/Bridging-the-gap-the-McDonald.html [Accessed 9th February 2010] 7- Nick Hasell 8- Charles Atkinson (2005) McDonald 's, a guide to the benefits of JIT [online]Inventory management review, http://www.inventorymanagementreview.org/2005/11/mcdonalds_a_gui.html [Accessed 9th February 2010]