Question: Bruegger's produces a variety of bagels, including plain, onion, poppyseed, sesame, andcinnamon raisin, as well as assorted flavors of cream cheese. Bagels are the major source ofrevenue for the company.Production of bagels is done in batches, according to flavor, with each flavor being produced ina daily basis. Production of bagels at Bruegger's begins at the main plant in Albany, where the basic ingredients of flour, water, yeast, and flavorings are combined in a special mixing machine. After the dough has been thoroughly mixed, it is transferred to another machine that shapes the dough into individual bagels. Once the bagels have been formed they are loaded onto refrigerated trucks for shipping to individual stores. When the bagels reach a store, they are unloaded from the trucks and temporarily stored while they rise. The final two steps of processing involve boiling the bagels in a kettle of water and malt for one minute and then baking the bagels in an oven for approximately 15 minutes. Quality is an important feature of a successful business. Customers judge the quality of bagels by their appearance (size, shape, and shine), taste, and consistency. Customers are also sensitive to the service they receive when they make their purchases. Bruegger's devotes careful attention to quality at every stage of operation, from choosing suppliers of ingredients,careful monitoring of ingredients, and keeping equipment in good operating condition to monitoring output at each step in the process. At the stores, employees are instructed to watch for deformed bagels and to remove them when they find them. (Deformed bagels are returned to the main plant where they are sliced into bagel chips, packaged, and then taken back to the stores for sale, thereby reducing the scrap rate.) Employees who work in the stores are carefully chosen and then trained so that they are competent to operate the necessary equipment in the stores and to provide the desired level of service to customers.The company operates with minimal inventories of raw materials and inventories of partially completed bagels at the main plant and very little inventory of bagels at the stores. One reason for this is to maintain a high degree of freshness in the final product by continually supplying fresh product to the stores. A second reason is to keep costs down; minimal inventories mean less space is needed for storage.
Questions:
1. Name two other food items, and two nonfood items, that would lend themselves to batch production. Explain.
2. Quality is very important to Bruegger's.
a. What features of bagels do customers look at to judge their quality of bagels?
b. At what point in the production process do workers check bagel quality?
c. List the steps in the production process, beginning with purchasing ingredients, and ending with the sale, and state how quality can be positively affected at each step (control).
3. Bruegger's maintains relatively little inventory at either its main plant or its retail stores. List the benefits and the risks of this policy.
4. Bruegger's has a single bagel-making machine that is located at the main plant. Another possibility would be to have a bagel-making machine at each store. What advantages does each alternative have?
5. Discuss two concepts in Logistics Management that can help the company. Explain clearly with examples.