Development of a production system of McDonald’s UK

This research report analyzes the production system of McDonald’s UK, focusing on how the restaurant manages its food production system. It discusses the management of investors and assets, fundamental operations, and the potential use of a lean approach. The report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the production system in terms of customer convenience and organizational efficiency.

Running head: OPERATIONS
Operations
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Content
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Appraising how well the investors and the assets within production system are presently
managed.....................................................................................................................................2
Providing a detailed illustration of fundamental operations engaged within the restaurant
production’s system presenting logical operation flow.............................................................4
Identifying two significant points where McDonald’s delivery system could fail to align its
operational performance measures.............................................................................................6
Discussing how a lean approach could be utilized in production system to potentially reduce
the failing discussed in point three.............................................................................................7
Identifying three major key findings the extent which the lean approach selected could assist
the production system with aligning its operational performance measure...............................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

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Topic- Development of a production system of McDonald’s UK
Introduction
This research report is an analysis of production system of McDonald’ UK to derive a
suitable understanding about the production system in terms of how a restaurant manage its
food production system under a competitive environment. The major purpose of the report is
to develop a suitable understanding about how restaurant manage its operation considering
the convenience of both customers and organization itself through a suitable production
system. Under a general view, when it comes to production model of restaurant it can be
mentioned that models of production is generally positioned as both consumer service
providers as well as tangible finished goods manufacturers, restaurants tend to sell an
inventory which has fabricated from the raw materials at the site consumption. However,
besides this general view a lot about the production system of McDonald’s UK has been
discussed in this report.
Appraising how well the investors and the assets within production system
are presently managed
It has been identified that McDonald has always been one of the major players in the
fast food market since a long term. There is no denying that the firm has faced tough
competition since then which is affected by every element of its organization. Lane (2013)
added the fact that McDonald’s under an uncertain and unstable economy has effectively
understood the need of enhancing its performance by maximizing the ratio of Return on
Investment. This is possible only by increasing its index of Return on Assets (Pedersen
2013). This happens because physical asset tend to represent the most significant component
of investment and this is not usually tradable. Nonetheless, Mellet et al. (2014) commented
that for a first food chain like McDonald’s because in such context, organizations of all types

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and sizes but the particularly the capital intensive ones must have to deal with the eternal as
well as internal factors which increases the extent of uncertainty of whether or not they able
to achieve economic as well as financial objectives.
It can be mentioned that the effect of uncertainty on objectives of the firm tend to
represent risk and to ensure that risk is controlled as well as Return on Investment and Return
on Asset ratios are provided in a most effective as well as sustainable manner. It becomes
essential to deal with the equipment by considering the entire life cycle. In this context,
Arnot, Vizzier-Thaxton and Scanes (2016) mentioned that effective management of
equipment, particularly in capital intensive firm like McDonald’s indicates not only a vision
that encompasses aspects of economic as well as financial nature but it could involve a
definite way just like the technical management of the operations of physical assets because
this represents the most significant share of investment.
In this context, Chathoth et al. (2013) commented that when it comes to implementation of
the elements of operation management in manufacturing and restaurant industry, modern
operations management initiative or efforts should be considered such as lean theory or six
sigma model in manufacturing. As put forward by Wahab, Mukhtar and Sulaiman (2013),
lean manufacturing is a systematic method of omitting or limiting waste under the
manufacturing process which has a direct relation between supply and inventory. According
to the author of this article lean theory accounts for waste which is developed through
overburden or uneven workloads.
The major characteristic of this theory is that the theory helps to consider the use of
resource for any other reasons compared to value creation for consumers as wasteful and tries
to eliminate wasteful resource expenditure as much as possible. Lean management enables
the company to gain a full control over the use of resource and determined by the demands of

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food items in the market. Hence, when it comes to asset management, it is worth telling that
investment and asset management at McDonald’s are done on the basis of the relation
between return on asset and criteria of using resources. In this context, the establishment of
new technologies as well as business context have led to the natural evolution of basic
concept of a production system. Hence, the idea of LLC- life Cycle Cost of Production
equipment could lead to reflection on importance of nature and purpose of investment to be
made for asset management in McDonald’s (Pedersen 2013.).
Providing a detailed illustration of fundamental operations engaged within
the restaurant production’s system presenting logical operation flow
The newly developed production system is more of a lean approach in which
resources, use of inventory and demands should be simultaneously aligned. It has been
identified that food production system of a restaurant usually have three fundamental system
such as input, process and outputs. Hence, each unit has its own role or functions to be
implemented; for example, input function might include the management and organization of
different foo ingredients, materials, machinery as well as items which could go into the
system; likewise, Process could include different things which happen to the input which
converts into the outputs. Eventually, output remains as the finished food products. However,
it is worth mentioning that food production system is wholly concerned with consumer
service provider- which is the organization and food manufacturer.
In this context, Pampanelli, Found and Bernardes (2014) commented that even
though it is a known the fact that service firm are usually characterized by the provision,
consumption of service, the point of delivery, service providers hardly manufacturer a
consumer good on the premise for certain and sudden utilization. Aguado, Alvarez and
Domingo (2013) gave an example the stated combination of service as well as production

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could be analogue to particularly to a new automobile showroom at the end of the assembly
floor, but it happens only if the new car came with a single tank of gas as well as discard after
one use. Nonetheless, under this same production model in a restaurant, both the service and
the products are ordered which cooked, assembled as well as used in a less than a day. Thus,
it should be noted that as there is a melding of two different functions, under the new
production system, the restaurant should perform its role as the hybrid the organization, along
with a unique of opportunity to disclose theoretical principles from manufacturing as well as
service.
Use of just in time approach in the production system
Hence under the newly developed production system Just in Time manufacturing
system is developed on three sample goals. Firstly, the batch size of the production could be
small, which could equalize one single unit at a time. Secondly, this newly developed
production system has been shifted from a ‘production-push’ to a ‘demand-pull’ system,
there could be no work in progress or the inventory of finished goods.
Another significant factor of this newly developed production model is the
productivity and quality are directly related, and it is estimated that there could be almost
100% of acceptable run at each step on production line. In addition, it can also be mentioned
that proposed JIT system in the production system of McDonald’s, JIT system is most likely
to decrease the work-in progress inventories, increase productivity by reducing waste,
managing low production as well as retooling cycle times.
When it comes to batching the size to be small, the second of three goals need to be
introduced properly and there is a crucial difference between demand full- and production-
push manufacturing. For example, Alves and Alves (2015) mentioned that a conventional-
push system is more of similar to the original Ford River Rouge line of assembly which can

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inject raw materials at one end of a factory line and on the other push the finished goods out
at the other end. It is quite certain that finished goods inventories cannot have a particular
customer waiting for them, thereby they are often shipped to company warehouse, to
distributors or to retailor. This exactly functions like a flooding river, over-stocked good
inventories often get pushed into the possible available space that could accommodate. It is
worth telling that restaurant equivalent needs to be apparent. For example, original
McDonald’s batch production system is full bin slots which is its ‘habit it our way’ choice
and developed on a production-push model (Mostafa, Dumrak and Soltan 2013). This has no
direct relation between a single order as well as the manufacturer or who makes it. On the
other side, under this newly developed production system, a demand-pull system enables the
situation in which no product gets worked on until a customer places an order for that
particular product. So the new system is more of a demand pull and it becomes apparent that
the selling function is significantly more important in a demand pull-system compared to a
production-push system for major reasons –such as where durable finished goods inventories
are allowed to accumulate, particularly, where stored labour inventory remains as the hidden
cost associated with the value added good itself.
Identifying two significant points where McDonald’s delivery system could
fail to align its operational performance measures
It has been identified that Just-in Time manufacturing discussed above in the context
of production system produces revolutionaries who are not aware of the closure- do not know
when to stop. In this context, Khataie and Bulga (2013) commented that it is Just in Time
manufacturing is also producing over reactions from people who are determined to stop it.
Even though the push and pull demand techniques is shaping the foundation of the production
model requires the managers to generate unnecessary information as well as seeks more
disciplines that a shop floor needs. Moreover, the pull and push technique in JIT of

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production system is little confusing and cumbersome to retailers or service providers
because it is clear that pull initiates the production in the anticipation of future demand;
thereby, McDonald’s tend runs on a pull system but a catering service could operate a push
system.
Rinehart, Huxley and Robertson (2018) mentioned that to be more precise in the use of JIT
in production system, at for example McDonald’s customer orders hamburger and the server
tends to receive one from the rack and prepares the new burger when the number gets low.
Likewise, store manager places the order of ground beef just when marker’s inventory is too
low. So, it can be mentioned that customers’ purchase could trigger pull materials through the
system and then consumer could initiate a chain of demand. On the other side, the caterer
could make anticipation about how many steak of beef or lobsters are supposed to be ordered
in a mentioned number of days. So, the individual could know the required number of meals
can be accommodated. Rather it can be mentioned that the caterer can receive the picture of
production in mind as well as accordingly pushes the materials to where they exactly should
be kept.
Nonetheless, the entire system is quite paradoxical in nature because even though it is certain
that JIT advocates admire the pull system and is little associated with the computer-governed
push system just like the MRP Javadian Kootanaee, Babu and Talari (2013) but latter
inherently tries to be JIT system, while the pull system do not really identify the future events
that required to be just in time. So, this often creates a significant delay in the production
system, especially when both function of JIT are active, one of the function is not able to
send the right signal, the end result is not as desired. In this context, Battini, Boysen and
Emde (2013) also mentioned the fact that such techniques are less suitable managing food
retail operations.

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Discussing how a lean approach could be utilized in production system to
potentially reduce the failing discussed in point three
As there are two basic setbacks in lean approach it is inevitable that the process
requires refinement and this updating is often known as ‘lean manufacturing’ which pays
attention not only just in time inventory as well as total quality management, the process
significantly helps to reduce the possible waste in production. Here, according to Kaynak
(2013) refinement not only occurs with respect to component of the parts and but also the
system of workers because small group of numbers being active in specific areas of work-in
progress, so the inventory becomes specialized cells particularly in an integrated holistic
network of independent technique. This could happen as Kanban system often pulls semi-
finished products through the line; consequently, the cells tend response by producing just the
amount which is required for the requirement of the next customer. Thus, the implementation
of six sigma or any other system of quality management is intended to make sure that the
process has as close to zero defects as possible and recognises disruption along the whole
line.
Furthermore, it can mentioned that to enhance consumer demand for the customized
products, retooling of production line requires to be as faster as possible but in the traditional
system, retooling in manufacturing process could only occur on an occasional basis or only
when the new products are introduced. It can also be mentioned that retooling in
manufacturing can effectively be accomplished in just days to deal with the changing market
environment. Eventually, the lean production model could require constant development of
workers, which each level of employees at McDonald’s need to be aware of the system (Leib
2013). Team should meet the quality circle, for efficiency reviews and for persistently going
with training and development. So, consequently, it can be mentioned that new product
improvement as well as new products themselves tend to originate from such seasonal cycle.

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Identifying three major key findings the extent which the lean approach
selected could assist the production system with aligning its operational
performance measure
For any restaurant operator, the facts mentioned above could be obvious as it is true that in
restaurant environment, customers for a chicken stripe, for example, is usually thought to be
the customer of the meal delivered by the grill cook on the line. However, it also means that
the grill cook is the consumer of the prep cook in back kitchen who is probably surrounded
by the responsibility of cutting down stripe loin into edible portions. So, if the scenario
continues, prep cook is just the consumers for the driver of delivery truck which brought the
stripe loin particularly from the store or warehouse. Thus, it is worth telling that the entire
production in a restaurant with the inclusion of seat in dining room can only be provided at
that time. This process reduces the hazards line which means the products delivered could be
consumed within days as they sit in storage, so the quality diminishes quickly (Powell,
Riezebos and Strandhagen 2013). Consequently, customers can have their lunch or dinner at
a single moment in time, so if the seat remains empty or the line is too stiff, the overall asset
of the service or product could disappear. In addition to this, it can also mentioned that
considering the lean manufacturing principles, organization should get rid of inventory
because holding could incur the cost opportunity. However, in McDonald’s need to meet the
demands at all times; thus, to deal with the requirement, it must need to have a sophisticated
stock of control system just like one discussed above in the lean process. The system should
help to manage the process as well as eliminate wastage because of overstocking.
Conclusion
Due to changing market environment, restaurant organizations all overall the world
are in the need of a more suitable approach of production through which both internal and

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external organizational environment can be controlled. It has been identified that pull demand
function in Just in Time approach is not suitable to keep the track of future demands while
lean approach in production is efficient enough to fulfil the demands of both internal and
external organization environment. In addition to this, lean approach in production also helps
to have a full control over the time and waste of raw materials, which eventually helps to
reduce amount of waste.

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References
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Alves, J.R.X. and Alves, J.M., 2015. Production management model integrating the
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Arnot, C., Vizzier-Thaxton, Y. and Scanes, C.G., 2016. Values, trust and science–building
trust in today's food system in an era of radical transparency. Poultry science, 95(9), pp.2219-
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automobile industry. Journal of Management Control, 24(2), pp.209-217.
Chathoth, P., Altinay, L., Harrington, R.J., Okumus, F. and Chan, E.S., 2013. Co-production
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from introduction to implement. Nagendra and Talari, Hamid, Just-In-Time Manufacturing
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performance of firms operating in the US. Routledge.
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manufacturing: activity-based costing application. International Journal of Quality &
Reliability Management, 30(7), pp.751-764.

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Lane, C., 2013. Taste makers in the “fine-dining” restaurant industry: The attribution of
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