Read the case given above and answer the following questions

TITLE: How McDonalds achieves its Operations Performance Objectives?

McDonalds achieved many of its objectives like reducing costs, improving product quality, punctual delivery, and speed of response, product flexibility in adapting to individual customer requirements, resistance to fluctuations in demand, advanced technology and excellent customer service by implementing many operations strategies. It focused on its Performance Objectives related to Operations Management to achieve its objectives. The company provided with the customers a variety of high quality food products which contains items made from fruits, vegetables and milk. It also provided a professional training to all its employees (customer care, restaurant employees, employees in kitchen, marketing, billing and other operations) on preparation of all food items through a systematic process, adhering to standards. The company focuses on meeting all the international specifications related to hygiene focusing on hand and dish washing by using latest technology. It continuously collected feedback from customers and took steps to improve its quality from time to time based on their feedback. It also implemented Total Quality Management (TQM) technique to improve its quality from time to time. McDonalds minimized the speed of delivering its items to the customers by designing its operations using an assembly line in which each employee performs his / her operation quickly and sending it to the next person in the line. This reduced the waiting time for the customer. Most of the operations are also carried out in parallel to minimize the service time. The company set standard times for preparation, packing and delivering of each food item. This increased the productivity of the company. The other performance objective of dependability was achieved by maintaining consistency in its operations, repeated performance of trained employees through standard set of processes, and adhering to the standard operating procedures. The company also trained all the employees on how to handle the customers during peak and non-peak hours and serve them quickly. It achieved the other performance objective of flexibility by quickly changing the items in the menu, by catering to the sudden rise in the demand, by offering balance of items in the menu depending on different tastes of adults and children, by training the staff on how to handle multiple tasks and jobs. The assembly line was also made flexible enough so that it can be changed from time to time. The flexibility in its operations is also achieved through its flexible organization structure and allotting shifts to employees for their continuous availability to the customers. McDonalds achieved the performance objective of cost reduction by minimizing the waste in its operations, eliminating rework, and by training employees on how to use all the available resources optimally. The raw material items are purchased only when they are required using the Just-in-Time technique. Thus, all the performance objectives of McDonalds are interconnected with each other. When the quality is improved, cost is reduced; delivery 2 time reduced and flexibility improved which finally increases the dependability of customers on the company. This was achieved by McDonalds through continuous improvement efforts since it was established.

1. Explain operations performance objectives of the McDonalds that given in the case.

2. Discuss the Process of the McDonalds. Draw a process diagram by indicating all the steps in the process.

3. Analyze and Evaluate the operations strategies of this McDonalds and suggest what new approaches can it adopt to achieve their performance objectives. Explain the new approaches.