Breakfast Pizza Case Study

Production Needs Starbucks has a very strict process in place regarding the making and delivering of their food. The food they serve is made in an offsite facility then frozen and delivered to the cafes (Von Hare, 2017). The breakfast pizza they are adding to the menu will follow suit by being made at an already existing Starbucks supplier facility, packaged, frozen and delivered alongside other Starbucks food products.
Cycle Time Cycle time is the amount of time it takes to make the product. The cycle time to make breakfast pizza for Starbucks would entail how long it took for the pizza to be made in the offsite facility. This would include cooking and assembling all the ingredients required for the breakfast pizza as well as freezing
This happens when one part of the process slows down the rest of the process due to the inability for the task to occur at the same rate as the other tasks involved in the process. For the breakfast pizza, the bottlenecks faced would most likely be in cooking or freezing the product. Although the ovens are fast, the size of the ovens could cause a bottleneck if the ovens can’t cook the pizza as quick as they are made. Additionally, using a cryogenic freezer allows for each item to be frozen in under 3 minutes however space in the cryogenic freezer could also cause a bottleneck (Midwest Pizza, 2012). Takt time is another component of cycle time that Starbucks needs to keep in mind. Takt time is the rate in which the product needs to be produced in order to satisfy the customer demand (Pereira, 2010). For the breakfast pizza, takt time involves the amount of time it takes to reheat the pizza once the customer orders it. Using the efficient TurboChef ovens, this time frame is not an issue as the pizza will take equal time to reheat as the frozen breakfast sandwiches Starbucks already offers and reheats for customers.
Lean Management and
Along with adding breakfast pizza to the menu, there will be an added section of the Starbucks Guidelines for Food Suppliers. This will involve lean management strategies such as aligning the production in a manner that avoids wasted time. Once wasted time is eliminated, the flow of the operations will be assessed to ensure bottlenecking is avoided and the flow is smooth. Since Starbucks suppliers manufacture for more than just Starbucks, these lean manufacturing changes will positively impact more than just Starbucks. The last aspect of the lean manufacturing assessment will involve assessing the frozen delivery of goods. The path used to transfer foods, time taken for delivery and amount of goods delivered will be evaluated. The end result may be that different routes are taken and/or different amounts of food are delivered to each café. Since breakfast pizza has a shelf life, it is important that each café is not getting more delivered than they