Part A
Ten years ago, two Midwestern college students began a small business in their campus apartment. The company provided fresh cookies to starving college student around campus. These students began with limited equipment: a mixer, an oven, a few cookie sheets, and a refrigerator. The students’ business concept was to bake fresh cookie to order. The customers would call in an order and pick up their cookies in one hour. The original product was a basic sugar cookie base. The customer could select any combination of other ingredients: raisins, chocolate chips, nuts, and cinnamon. If a customer ordered a product not on the list, the students would buy these ingredients the following day and add the item to the menu. For each order, the students would mix the appropriate ingredients in the sugar cookie base. These cookies sold for $ 5 a dozen.
The CCC was a great hit on campus. Soon business was booming. The company purchased additional mixers and cookie sheets. Soon, the problem associated with scheduling this business out of an apartment became very difficult.
Part B
During the third successful year of operations, the young entrepreneurs met two food science and technology (FST) majors. For their Senior project, these FST majors experimented with the cookie recipes to find a cookie that could be frozen and then baked to order. These FST majors were “B” students and could not perfect a frozen cookie base that could then have additional ingredients added prior to baking. Instead, these students found great recipes for the top three selling cookies. These new cookies would be mixed, cut to shape, and frozen up to six months in advance. When the customer placed an order, the cookie would be taken from the freezer, placed on trays and baked fresh.
CCC was thinking about using ONLY the new recipes and renting a small general purpose kitchen in the university's home economics department that had multiple ovens.
a) Discuss (identify and defend your selection) the type of process (project, job shop, batch, line, or continuous) expected to be seen in the Crumbly Cookie Company in Part A. What are the order winners for CCC in Part A?
b) What type of process would be “best” for the new product line in Part B? Why?
c) How would the Part B business model impact the variety, quality, and labor skills of CCC?
d) Should CCC switch to the new product line? Please defend your recommendation.