Operation Management Decisions And Analysis Of Dominos Pizza

Process Designing

The following report scrutinizes how the operation management of a company is built according to its growing market competition. It further examines the competence level of the company and its operation managers in different countries that makes its products and services more deliverable (Slack, Chambers and Johnston 2010). The chosen company for this framework is Dominos Pizza PLC, an UK based company that captains the fast food delivery chain across the countries. The company has its ownership branches in- apart from UK- Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland. With more than 900 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Dominos Pizza PLC has become one of the giant pizza delivery chains in the continent.

With the widening wings of its franchises in the LDCs (Less Developed Countries), the company has further broadened its scope of business operations (Corporate.dominos.co.uk, 2017). Such breadth of scope is expertly managed through the company’s operation management. The Operation Manager of the company is shouldered the responsibility of handling the situations pertaining to the supply chain management, process designing and quality management. Since the prime business of the company is to bake pizzas and deliver them to the customers, quality is always related to the making of product and providing better customer service (Lafontaine and Slade 2014).

The company has been spreading globally to different outlets. The number of outlets has surpassed 9000. A pioneered franchise model is used by the global franchises of Domino’s (Kumar 2016). The headquarter maintains, invigilates and operates the supply chain i.e. the procurement of raw materials, transportation and storage of raw materials and designs the marketing strategy; propagates the business and marketing framework of the company to its various franchises to ensure best practices (Corporate.dominos.co.uk, 2017).

Disbursement of management strategy is done through the following way:

Through designing a franchise-framework, the company continues to thrive in a particular market genre. The objective of it is to bring all the franchises together to stand under the same shade of fixating goals (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). Following goals are unrevised despite several strategic changes in the company according to the mode of market-

1. Remaining undefeated in international market competition
2. Expansion of variety in Menu

• E- Marketing

1. Understanding the need of the Local Market

Followings are the operation strategies that the OMs of Dominos have been undertaking to provide high quality service to its customers-

1. The first strategic plan of the company is to minimize the cost of operation. Since profit maximisation is the ultimate motto of any profit organisation, some strategic interventions are needed to ensure the same. For Dominos, minimisation of operation cost does not compromise with customer service. It puts an effort to improve the efficiency of the stores and accessibility of the process(Rashid et al. 2015).
2. The operation manager of the company has the acumen to judge suitability of store location. Understanding the proper importance of a particular location is the main criterion of an operation manager. This is done in order to provide facilities of quick delivery of the product. Hence, the company facilitates through maximizing revenue through service and savings in transportation cost.

• Quality is matters the most for operation management. An operation manager understands the taste of the local people so that it can be utilised in baking pizzas. Dominos offers ethnic food to the people of India in different festivals. In the Less Developed Countries, the company facilitates the customer by offering them products with low and affordable price thus reaching to a vast range of the customers.

1. Efficiency  in process includes taking order from the customers, preparation of pizza, baking, packaging and delivery(Mahadevan 2015). The operation manager has the responsibility to convey the message to all the franchises that this process shall remain the same irrespective of stores in different countries. However, some innovative processes are welcomed depending on the demand of the customers. Executing the plan is major operational strategy of the company.
2. In order to bring innovation in ensuring quality of the product, the company promotes its own culture as well as that of the customers so as to attract different Diasporas in a particular country.  The company has drawn an exemplary vision by introducing spicy hot pizzas in its different franchises thus attracting the customers of the Middle East and Indian subcontinent (Jafari and Sand?kc? 2015).
3. Whether the outlets meet the customer demand or not, is also duly checked by the operation different of the franchises. Hence, a comprehensive audit method is used to scrutinise the performances of the stores or the outlets.

• With the documentation of SAP (Supplier Approval Procedure) ,  the company  ensures that the quality of the supplied material remains consistently high. A food technologist is given the responsibility of testing the quality of the food and supplied ingredients.
• The audit report made by the Food Technologists is sent for the certification of BRC Global Standard for Food Safety.

Domino’s is the largest pizza delivery chain of the world with more than eight thousand franchises. Jubilant Food works Ltd. is the master franchise of the company that operates other franchises and design SOP (Standard Operation Procedure) for them (Heizer and Barry 2013). Domino’s maintains VIS (Vertical Integrated Supply Chain) method in order to maintain control on the entire system. It coordinated the supply chain among all the franchises around the world. It further fixates the price of the products.

Quality Assurance

Disbursement of the rules and standard from the head franchise to the sub- franchises follows Hub and Spoke Model of supply chain. The commissionaires are located in different countries, which control the entire business operation of the entire franchises of that particular country. Procurement of raw material such as wheat, flour and other ingredients is done through tender. Pizza dough is prepared in the commissionaires; is packed and distributed to the outlets. The outlets are responsible to bake the pizzas and perform home delivery (Sungaila and Ellison 2016). This is how the supply chain method is followed by different franchises of Domino’s.

Following is an example of mode of supply chain practiced in Dominos in UK-

1. Raw Materials: The central commissionaire UK i.e. at Milton Keynes procures the required raw materials from a selected company prepares dough and necessary ingredients(Lafontaine and Slade 2014).
2. Supply:The prepared foodstuffs are supplied to the nearest distribution centres. The commissary mainly regulates the sub-franchises in Milton Kynes, Penrith, Nass and other places.

• Storage: From the distribution centres the ingredients are stored in different outlets. This process is done within three days from receiving the foodstuffs from the commissary thus confirming JIT theory. With the help of PULSE system, the work is tracked on a regular basis.

The operational task of the company is to minimize the cost of procurement maintaining the quality of the products. The head franchises are to check the short time availability of the suppliers so as to save as much time as possible.  It is also the duty and responsibility of the managers to enhance the chains in supply. Most of the commissionaires are located at the places nearest to their procurement centres. This particularly eases the procurement process without raising the cost of it. Performance of the employees deployed to the storage centres is thoroughly checked. The operation managers of Domino’s have been specifically diligent and smart in controlling the entire supply chain process.

Inventory Management refers to the quantification of the supply and stock of the company. This is one of the most industrious tasks that an operation manager is deployed to do. Quantification and account of the entire supply and storage process to all the franchises undertaken by the commissionaires is performed by the Operation Managers (Vlajic, Van der Vorst and Haijema 2012). The company has set a rule to maintain inventory at every four days. The company advises all the sub- franchises to keep mini cold storage to keep the pizza base safe and hygienic. Domino’s has special inventory system that is unmatched by any other pizza delivery company in the world. The inventory level of the franchises is invigilated by the centre via Point of Sale (POS) data through using Intura vision (Bell, Andrews and Shelman 2011). This monitoring process is applied to every retail outlet. Every store is directed to use two POS-

1. Sales through Telephone
2. In-Store

If shortage is found in the stores, the head quarters advise the franchises to recover the setbacks as soon as possible.

Supply Chain Management

Following tabular presentation of SWOT reflects different working aspects of te company in terms of its operation management-

Strength	Weakness
i) The basic strength of the company is its growing supply chain that is even more expanding ii) Strength of the company is the quality of the product made in the commissary. iii) Understanding of the ethic and demand off the local market iv) Implementation of supplier and customer review datasheet (Mankoff 2014) v) Collaboration with Coca Cola has strengthened its business status.	i) Few percentage of the customers complain regarding the quality of service delivery ii) Welfare of the employees have been unsatisfactory. iii) Number of pizza delivery bikes is less than that of other food chain giants
Opportunity	Threat
i) Domino’s has a vast scope of grabbing the largest market in the world. It can do so by getting rid of the setbacks. ii) Since it contributes a good portion in the procurement of the food crops, it has the opportunity of becoming the largest procurer of a particular crop in the sector (Syed 2016).	i) There is huge competition in the global market from other food chain giants like McDonalds, Pizza Hut and so on. ii) If the quality of service is not checked by the operation management department, the competition may stand as a hindering wall in front of its success.

The strength of the company’s operation management is to be evaluated through its market reputation.

1. i) Volume of the outlets has been the greatest strength of Domino’s. It has become a paradigm of modern kitchen.
2. ii) The company has been successful in creating market demand. According to the demand Domino’s has set different varieties of products maintaining the high quality(Soni, Singh and Tomar 2016).

iii) PULSE system is one of the greatest strengths on Domino’s. It helps the employees in touch screen ordering, GPS tracking system and efficient MIS ability.

However, the company has some limitations pertaining to the quality of pizza in comparison to its core competitor Pizza Hut. Pizza hut intimates the customers with the usage of proper calorie where as Domino’s does not have much provision of intimating the customers (Kumar 2015). Few other discrepancies of the company need to be improved.

Conclusion:

Operation Manager of a company is responsible for its entire process. The process of supply chain, making of products and other operations are taken care of by the OM. The master franchises in different countries have their Operation Managers deployed for the operation of the entire outlet unit. The vast supply chain, improvement of the storage and refrigerator, customer satisfaction in terms of delivery and post delivery services are the business concerns of Operation Managers. The most important task for an operation manager is to ease the task for the marketing manager of the company through ensuring profit maximisation.

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