Why Is the McFlurry Machine Down Again at McDonalds - Case Study Example

Case Study Analysis: Why is the McFlurry Machine down Again? Name Course Professor Date Executive Summary The following is a case study analysis that seeks to establish the problem breakdown of machines of making ice-cream, milk shake, and McFlurry. It is established that the failed delivery of the product created feeling of dissatisfaction among the customers who expressed themselves using social media. The main issue in on the operational management level and relates to the cleaning process for machines. The analyses discovered that the process id time consuming and tedious process. The 24 hour operation in some stores does not leave a slack to carry out the planning. McDonald’s therefore needs to improve on this. One way may be suing forecasting and planning methods such as aggregate planning model. McDonald is compared to one of its major competitor, KFC, with whom some distinctions as well as similarities in policies, strategies and decisions were found to exist. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Introduction 4 Core Competencies at McDonald’s 4 Operation Management Issues linked with McDonalds 5 Improving the Efficiency of Cleaning Process 6 Use of Forecasting and Planning Procedures to Overcome the Operations Issues 7 Comparison of McDonald’s and KFC 8 Conclusion 9 Introduction McDonald’s food is famous for its superb ice-cream, milkshake, and McFlurry. However, business has not been going on as usual. There have been breakdown of the supply of the ice cream, milk shake, and McFlurry which has caused uproar among the customers. Customers in the US and abroad have taken to the social media platforms to express their laments for the failed service delivery a McDonald’s. The customers are running theories to try and explain this scenario. Some think its sabotage by the customers who don’t want to be serving the ice-cream or cleaning the machines. The customers have been loyal and have kept coming for their product only to receive a disappointment. The machines used in the production of require undergoing a closed process of automated clean up procedure requiring four hours of sanitization that cannot be interrupted. Any order received during this cleaning process are delayed or not fulfilled. This paper will analyze the operations at McDonald’s and the breakdown of the machines which has taken the spot at the most common customer complaint. Core Competencies at McDonald’s The competitive nature of business environment today has been crucial for businesses in their bid cement a favorable financial and market positions. Core competency has been noted as one of the ways in which businesses acquire competitive advantage. Core competencies describe the ability if organizations to operate efficiently within a business environment in a manner that allows it to deal with challenges. The core competency offers to the company sustainable competitive advantage (Agha, Alrubaiee, & Jamhour, 2012, p. 2). One of the core competencies at the McDonald’s is market share. This has been associated with the expansion plan that have seen MacDonald’s increase their number of store in the US and globally. The company has managed to create a strong brand for it’s and makes sure that the customers will get a McDonald’s joint right next to where they live. The company growth and expansion plan includes use of franchises. The increased number of joints developed enhances the convenience for the people whenever they need to get fast foods and snack from a globally recognized store. Ireland, Hoskisson& Hitt identifies that McDonald’s tries to leverage on resource portfolio to gain its competitive core competencies (2009, p. 53). On this connection the company maintains the perspective that is success is dependent on the ability and potential of the employees to help guide the organization in the growth and expansion plan. McDonald’s also generate their core competency for the nature of the products that makes customer want to come for more. McFlurry is one of the main products that lures the customers to return to the store and accounts for 14% of the desserts. Ice-cream served at McDonald is also a great revenue generator. Operation Management Issues linked with McDonalds According to the case study, McDonald’s is facing numerous management issues that are hindering its efficient and smooth running of operations. The major problem is related to the breakdown to the delivery of ice cream, milkshake and McFlurry. At the core of this problem is the nature of machines used in the production of ice cream, milkshake and McFlurry. The machine frequently breaks down as one former employee at McDonald’s asserts that the repairman would frequent the store to carry out the repair and servicing of the machine. The other issue related to the machine is the flexibility of the cleaning procedure. The cleaning procedure requires automated heat cleaning cycle for four continuous and uninterrupted hours. The cleaning procedure follows an 11-stepm procedure that requires mixing sanitizer with warm water, removal of and rinsing seven components, brushing the fixed parts, and wiping the machine. It is observed that once the cleaning process is initiated, they machine automatically is out of service as the heated cycle cannot be interrupted and employees tend be reluctant to reassemble the machine to serve a new order being completing the cleaning process. The nature of operations on most McDonald’s store where they operate for 24hours creates a strain on the working conditions of the machine as at some point they have to pull down for the cleaning process. The machine is also not user friendly as they create a huge mess when in operation. This makes the employees hesitant to use them to prepare the desert after cleaning up before closing as this would prompt redoing of the tedious cleaning job. Improving the Efficiency of Cleaning Process The cleaning of the Machines at McDonald’s has proved to be costly to the operations of the organization creating a huge time lag. This process is in dire need of improvement. The organization can improve the cleaning process by following different step. One of the ways of achieving this will by acquiring a new set of the removable components. This will imply that during the cleaning process, this part will be replaced with already clean part thus reducing the amount the time under which the machine will not be running. The removed parts will be cleaned later in a convenient time when there will be no delays. The company should liaise with the manufacturer to come up with an efficient method of sanitizing that reduces the heat cycle from four hours. The organization may adopt a specialized cleaning system called the Duplex steam cleaners. The duplex steam is highly versatile and helpful in eliminating listeria, salmonella, and Staphylococcus. The system used super-heated dry steam vapor to clean the machine. This system is effective as it maintains high temperature of then steam which is essential in killing pathogens and micro-organism even in the most remote parts of the machine. Using the cleaning system ensures that the treated are dry instantly and can thus be put in use within the shortest time possible. The system is efficient in water usage as it used only 3l liters of water per hour. The steam produced is gentle on the surfaces of the machine but lethal to the dirt and germs. The use of this machine can be used to replace the heat cycle process thereby saving precious time. The process of using Duplex steam cleaner is as effective as the heat cycle as the stem is super-heated t +155 and yields 94% dry steam to clean, sanitize, and deodorize the machine. The manufacturer recommended heat cycle may be carried out once per week (Duplex, 2017, p.1). Use of Forecasting and Planning Procedures to Overcome the Operations Issues One of the important methods of forecasting is the aggregate planning which allows an organization predicts their supply and demand of their products. This process is essential in enabling the organization streamline their operations and thereby increase productivity. The use of this model for this case of McDonald will help in developing an operation plan that is sustainable and efficient. It helps in making decisions related to staffing, materials acquisition and expected timeline (Robertson, 2017, p.1). The model can be applied to determine the peak period for the joints and thereby determine the most suitable time to schedule the cleaning process. The time dedicated for cleaning should ensure that there enough staff in store to carry out the cleaning process in the shortest time possible. The forecasting methods will also be relevant in scheduling the servicing and repairing periods for the machines with minimal interruption to the operations. There may a sensitivity analysis to determine the effect of delayed service time to the customer satisfaction. Improving on operational efficiency in the cleaning process will be highly effective for the stores operating for 24 hrs. A sensitivity analysis will be essential in determining the most appropriate incentive to offer to the customers for the delay they may experience during the clean-up period. To deal with this, forecasting will be essential to determine the effect of acquiring a different set of machine. Installing another machine will improve the service time and also prevent total interruption of operation during cleaning schedules for the stall operating for 24 hours per day thereby with no specific window when the cleaning may be done. Comparison of McDonald’s and KFC McDonald’s and KFC offer each other stiff competition in the fast food industry. These two organizations have excellent services, standardization, and mission and restaurant environment. However there are a couple of variances between these two fast-food giants in terms of strategies and competitiveness aspects. McDonald’s has acquired its core competency from the integration of intangible assets. This has assisted the company in becoming one of the most valuable global restaurant brands. The organization makes use of internet penetration and increased pace of information transfer to help in the expansion of growth plan. KFC on the other hand takes pride in their franchising model that helps investors not to start from the ground (Hu & Xie, 2013, p. 25). In the global expansion strategy, KFC makes use of localization of raw material in some regions such as China. These tow fast food organizations are known to operate standardized research and development programs. The process of offering consistent taste of the food in the menu requires the procedures be detailed and a conclusion given in a right format of quantitative criteria. Both KFC and McDonald use standardization to develop and maintain their core knowledge (Hu & Xie, 2013,p. 26) Another major decision by the fast food industries is on the location of their joints. McDonald’s in most case prefers sites within the city center while KFC goes for shopping malls as their main locations. However, it can be observed that competition sees these fast food organizations develop the joint in similar locations (Hu & Xie, 2013,p. 26) A consideration of the chain-store operations model by KFC and McDonalds indicates that they both maintain regular and franchising sales with an aim of improving profitable growth. For the stores where the organizations maintains direct sales, the companies holds controlling stock and thereby incurs high up-front costs and increased cost centers. For the franchising model, the organizations experiences increase of costs for control and management of the sores and high initial costs to support the smooth cash flow of the business. The model of franchise for the two fast food companies differs. MacDonald’s gets shops in different places and subleases it to the franchisee. KFC on the other hand, authorizes the franchise operators to operate and rum a mature KFC outlet that is on a profit making streak (Hu & Xie, 2013,p. 27) Conclusion The analyses of the case study of McDonald’s have led to the discovery of the dissatisfaction levels among the customers due to continued breakdown of machines that makes ice-cream, milk shake and McFlurry. The social media has emerged as a powerful tool for customer reviews as in the case described the customer raised their issues on failing machines from different stores all over the world. The main problem from the case study was discovered to be related to cleaning process of these machines which are not user friendly or efficient. The organization need to improve on this in order to prevent continued disappointment of customer. References Ice Cream Production Facility and Shoping Cleaning. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.duplexcleaning.com.au/ice-cream-production-facility-shop-cleaning.html Heizer, R. and Barry, R., 2013. Operation Management, Sustainability and Supply Chain management (Vol. 11). Pearson, UK. Hu, W., & Xie, Y. (2013). Comparative Study of McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Development in China. International Business Administration. Jamhour, M., Alrubaiee, L., & Agha, S. (2012). Effect of Core on Competitive Advantage and Organizatonal Perfomance. International Journal of Business and Management . Lee, Y.K., Kim, S.H. and Seo, M.K., 2015. Franchise Core Competency and Its Relationship with Environmental Uncertainty, Competitive Advantage, and Financial Performance: An Empirical Assessment of Food-Service Franchise Firms. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 20(10), pp.1151-1173. Robertson, T. (2017). The Advantages of Aggregate Planning . Chron. Read More