Home Style Cookies

Home Style Cookies

Introduction

Lew-Mark Baking Co. manufactures cookies, crackers, candy and baked items for the food industry. Founded in 1953, the company is from a small town in western New York. It has around 200 workers as manual labor. The company produces over 50 varieties of soft cookies. The company focuses on the high quality of products which developed a strong marker niche for its products. It focuses in the hygiene of its consumer which is why the company markets its cookies as “good food” with no additives or preservatives. The company has concentrated on the product, customers, production process, inventory, quality, introducing new products and areas of potential improvements.

            In the case, the company has adopted all possible technologies as per the concern of the health of its customer. It can be noted that the target customer of the company is the younger and older age people.

Production Process of Cookies

            The production process called batch processing system is used by Law-Mark Baking Co. The process necessitates the company to obtain orders from distributors so that appropriate amount of ingredients can be calculated for mixing process. This process then, requires sending the ingredients to giant mixing machines. The cookies are then transferred onto a conveyor belt and sent into huge ovens to increase the productivity as well as some cookies being cut on an angle saves spaces for increasing productivity. Finally the cookies are baked and cool down. The packaging of the cookies is done manually by the workers.

Two Ways Company Used to Increase Productivity

            Firstly, by creating diagonal shape of cookies without fillings leads to increased productivity as more cookies can fit in the container than any other shapes like straight or circle. Secondly, they increased productivity by investing in longer ovens. Now, the increasing length that is 25feet led to the increased number of cooking capacity and also saved costs of the company. More cookies were baked at one time which saves the time, cost and energy. 

Decision Not to Automate the Packing of Cookies, Is Right Decision?

            The company is making right decision by not automating the packing system as an automated process would not be able to remove the broken or deformed cookies. The machine would have put all the cookies in the box regardless of the size or condition. Therefore, here labor plays a vital role in saving the quality of the cookies. Also, if all works were done by machine then there would be higher unemployment rate which would hamper economy as a whole. As the company is situated at the small town of New York city, the size does matter. People in small town have less job opportunities so this why if automated machine was installed it would hamper the town badly, economically. However, in context of operating in large city, it is obvious that there would be high demand and to be able to meet the demand it would be necessary for the company to install such machine since it is hard to pack all the boxes of cookies manually.

Factors and Benefits of the Policy

            As the cookies are daily consumable product, its life span is short. The cookies are not meant to be healthy if they were held for longer time. The policy to maintain lower inventory would save the holding cost. Also, the chances of expiry and damage would be avoided.

Factors to be Considered While Judging Quality of Cookies

            A consumer would want to pay extra for the quality product. As a consumer, I would consider the following factors while purchasing cookies:

            Manufactured date and validity of product

            Ingredients

            Packaging

            Taste (without color or preservatives)

            Comparative price of product

Merits and Demerits of Not Using Preservatives in Cookies

            An artificial additive would be harmful in context to hygiene and health of consumer. It consumption rate also expands when there are no preservatives in the cookies, as health conscious consumer would prefer to eat fresh every day. Adding color to food is an artificial act that may cause internal damages to health of people. On the contrary, preservatives add the life to the cookies. So it can be consumed for few more days than the natural product, there comes the matter of fast expiry. Colors and extra preservatives may also cause damage to the machines of the company. This could lead to maintenance cost or even replacement cost to the company.

Company’s Strategy

            The target customer of the company is the young and old aged group. They know what should be produced for them. Old age people prefer less sugar as they are more prone to diabetes and other diseases. So by not adding colors or extra preservatives, they are focusing and caring about the health of their target groups.

Conclusion

            The company should also concentrate on changing technology. One must adopt techniques that increase productivity. Company must have different operating strategy as per the demand and environment of the market. Likewise in the case, since the company was operating in small town, there was less need of automated machine as the demand would also be lower to as compared to the large city where there is large population and increasing demand. Therefore, strong supply chain must be built for effective production.