questions be

The bakery is run very efficiently and has minimal amounts off scrap. For example, if a batch is mixed improperly, it is sold as dog food. Broken biscuits are used in the oatmeal biscuits. These practices reduce the cost if ingredients and save on waste disposal costs. The company also uses heat reclamation: The heat that escapes from the two ovens is captured and used to boil the water that supplies the heat to the building. Also, the use of automation in the mixing process has resulted in a reduction of waste compared with the manual methods used previously

NEW PRODUCTS

Ideas for new products come from customers, employees, and observations of competitors' products. New ideas are first examined to determine whether the biscuits can be made with existing equipment. If so$,$ a sample run is made to determine the cost and time requirements. If the results are satisfactory, marketing tests are concluded to see if there is a demand for the product.

SUPPLY CHAIN

The deliveries of raw materials mainly flour and eggs have become a problem over the last two years. The supplier of flour has relocated their operations to a neighbouring city $60$ kilometres away to be closer to the rail and shipping infrastructure. This has doubled the lead times $($delivery times$)$ from $3$ to $6$ days. The supplier of eggs has indicated that there is an ongoing problem with bacterial contamination at their factory and therefore production output of eggs has decreased by $42$ percent. The delivery truck has been late on nine occasions in the last week alone. Workers on the factory floor have had to be put on short time as there were insufficient raw materials to meet customer orders. Now, a major customer is threatening to cancel orders because of late deliveries.

Questions:

$1\mathrm{.}1$ Benchmarking is an approach that some companies use to compare their operations with those of other companies $($preferably the best in the world$).$ It is partly concerned with being able to judge how well an operation is doing. Benchmarking involves selecting a demonstrated standard of products, services, costs or practices that represent the very best performance for processes or activities very similar to your own.

Identify the most suitable type of benchmarking for Lew$-$Mark and explain the procedure they must follow.

$1\mathrm{.}2$ Define the criteria Lew$-$Mark should use in selecting supply chain partners and justify why you have selected such criteria.

$(10)$