Page 598 - Introduction to Business

572 PART 6 Managing Business Operations, Management Information Systems, and the Digital Enterprise

Technology and Business

McDonald’s Looks for Competitive Advantage
with Its New High-Tech Kitchen Layout

In its half century of corporate process to 45 seconds, some steps were eliminated
existence, McDonald’s has and some shortened. For instance, the company
revolutionized the restaurant industry by inventing developed a toaster that browns buns in 11 seconds
the limited-menu fast-food restaurant. Its first instead of 30. Bread suppliers had to change the
innovation, the introduction of indoor seating in the texture of the buns so they could withstand the
1950s, was a strategic issue of facility layout, as was additional heat. Workers also figured out they could
its second, drive-through windows introduced in the save two seconds if condiment containers were
1970s. Its third innovation, adding breakfast to the repositioned to apply mustard to sandwiches with
menu in the 1980s, was a product strategy; its fourth, one motion instead of two.
adding play areas in the 1990s, was again a layout The payoff for the layout change? McDonald’s
decision. will save $100 million per year because only the
Now, in 2000, McDonald’s is reaching for its fifth meat, and no longer the bun or other ingredients,
major innovation, and, not surprisingly, it is a new will be discarded when sandwiches do not sell
layout to facilitate a mass customization process. This fast enough. The company is banking that with
time the corporation is banking on the radical the new layout, new standards of efficiency and
redesign of the kitchens in its 13,500 North American happier customers will provide a competitive
outlets. Dubbed the “Made for You” kitchen system, advantage.
sandwiches are now assembled to order and
Source: From Jay Heizer and Barry Render, Operations Management,
production levels are controlled by computers. The 7th Edition, © 2004. Adapted by permission of Pearson Education,
new layout is intended to improve the taste of food by Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.
ensuring it is always freshly made, and to facilitate
Questions
the introduction of new products. It is being
introduced at a pace of 900 stores per month. 1. Does McDonald’s new high-tech kitchen layout
Under the new restaurant design, no food is belong to one of the three basic types of layouts?
prepared in advance except the meat patty, which is 2. In what ways can McDonald’s new high-tech
kept hot in a cabinet. To shorten the total production kitchen layout be improved?

Notice that line processes and continuous processes would require product-
oriented layouts. The Technology and Business box explains how McDonald’s is
looking for a competitive advantage by using a new high-tech kitchen layout.

reality How would you describe the design decisions at a company where you
CH ECK recently worked? Do you think the design was appropriate?

Planning Decisions

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 7
Illustrate the planning decisions about production rate, material requirements,
purchasing, and inventory.
Design decisions impose constraints on planning decisions. For example, a plant
designed to assemble 100 computers per hour will certainly place an upper bound
on the number of computers to assemble on, say, a weekly basis. However, this is
not to say that the production rate from week to week has to be the same. In peri-
ods of low demand, the plant may operate one shift per day; but in periods of high
demand, the plant may operate three shifts per day. Therefore, planning decisions,
although constrained by design decisions, offer the operations manager the oppor-

Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning, Inc. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.