Rivers_Week 3
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University of Phoenix *
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OPS/574
Subject
Industrial Engineering
Date
Jan 9, 2024
Type
docx
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4
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1
Running head: PRE-PROCESSING SYSTEM
Pre-processing System
Student Name
Phoenix University
OPS/574 Creating Value Through Operations
Professor Name
September 12, 2023
2
Running head: PRE-PROCESSING SYSTEM
Jack’s, a fast-food restaurant chain, manages peak demand by utilizing the pre-processing
strategy. According to the text, a pre-processing strategy is the act of “reducing the amount of
work needed to process a customer during the peak time period by moving some of the work to
an off-peak time” (Cachon and Terwiesch, 2023, p. 539). This process allows for less work all
while increasing the capacity to serve customers (Cachon and Terwiesch, 2023). Jack’s does this
by meal prepping. Biscuits are made from 3 a.m. until 9 a.m. for the entire day, which prevents
customers from having to wait on biscuits for their meals. The restaurant also pre-preps salads
during the morning rush to account for the lunch rush as well as the dinner rush.
The strength of the system is that it allows customers to receive full service at a faster
rate than restaurants that do not utilize the pre-processing strategy. Although rare, once all the
biscuits have been used customers are told that they cannot have a biscuit but can substitute for a
bun. The latter is the biggest weakness that I have observed at Jack’s.
An additional service system that Jack’s utilizes is the off-peak discount. Cachon and
Terwiesch (2023) note that this takes place when companies want to reduce demand without
reducing revenue. Jack’s has half-price sausage gravy and biscuits until 6 a.m. in an attempt to
avoid the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. rush. While this method allows for the morning rush to be a bit easier,
it also affects the number of biscuits that have to be made. This factor is one that fluctuates
because sometimes it is a pro and other times it isn’t. For example, if the rush shifts to account
for receiving the discount, biscuits are not allowed to overflow for the remainder of the day, and
by the time the rush stops the person in charge of baking biscuits may have to go on break or
potentially leave for the day. Conversely, when 50% of the customers changed their time of visit
to an earlier one, the person in charge of baking biscuits was able to make more than normal and
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Running head: PRE-PROCESSING SYSTEM
increase the revenue because they were able to sell more of them at a discounted rate to prevent
from having increased waste at the end of the night.
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Running head: PRE-PROCESSING SYSTEM
References
Cachon, G., & Terwiesch, C. (2023).
Operations management
. McGraw Hill Education.