The Fresh Connection is the company that produces fruit juices and delivers the product to retailers. This organization consists of four departments: Purchasing, Operations, Sales, and Supply Chain Management. Throughout the six rounds, these four departments made individual and cooperative strategic decisions to increase the company’s profit. Based on the results of the last round, two strengths and two weaknesses can be highlighted in the company’s performance.
The strengths include high delivery reliability of purchased juice components from the suppliers and high percentage order lines, while the weaknesses are low return on investment and poor production plan adherence. The Fresh Connection should continue to focus on maintaining percentage order lines; however, the company needs to improve production plan management to increase return on investment.
The Fresh Connection should continue working on its strong sides and overcoming weaknesses to raise operating profit. Although the company produces juices of a small range of flavors, it has an excellent availability and delivery time of the product for customers. For example, the average service level outbound order lines were about 70% which indicates high customer satisfaction with product delivery dates. Before the beginning of round 1, the service level was approximately 80%, which was kept within this range in almost all rounds. One of the weaknesses that should be corrected is production plan inconstancy.
For instance, some juice types have a low level of stocks, while others are produced at higher numbers. Specifically, the adherence to the production plan decreased from 75% in the first round to 47% in the sixth round. This inconsistency may result in poor service for customers and high expenses.
Overall, the strength and weaknesses of the juice-producing company were identified. Customer satisfaction with products and services is the foundation of a company’s prosperity. Therefore, the Fresh Connection should continue to master delivery reliability to preserve customer satisfaction with the service. Furthermore, the company should strive for equal production of all products to maintain adequate production plan adherence and to prevent financial loss which will lead to operating profit growth.