Gestão de Marketing

Gestão de Operações & Logística

Introdução e Estratégia de Operações

Case study
Frederic Godé
 Introdução e estratégia de Operações

Case study Frederic Godé:

A day in the life of Frederic Godé, Operations Manager, BonPain:

Frederic Godé is the Operations Manager of one of France's largest bakeries, BonPain, Orleans,
which supplies supermarkets throughout Europe with frozen, 'par-baked' (part-baked), French-
style bread and patisseries (decorative pastries often incorporating fruit, nuts or jam), After
delivery, these are thawed and re-baked in-store, providing delicious aromas and fresh-tasting,
traditional-style products to Europe's quality-conscious consumers.
BonPain's largest volume of products comprises a range of baguettes (French sticks), which are
made, baked and frozen on three high-volume, specially-built production lines. However, even
for baguettes there is a very wide range of recipes and packaging requirements, so these lines
have to be set-up for these differences several times per shift. The lower-volume, more complex
patisseries and speciality breads are made in batches, and are hand-assembled and finished prior
to baking in batch ovens and freezers. The total range of products comprises around 600 stock-
keeping units (SKUs), most of which are bulk-packed and stored in BonPain's freezers for up to
a maximum of four weeks. There is also a relatively small, flexible kitchen where new products
are being carefully developed by experienced chefs, who have a clear understanding of the
materials and processes to be used in full-scale production. This facility is an extremely
important 'order-winner' when dealing with supermarkets which require a regular supply of
attractive and tasty new products.
Frederic Godé recently attended a time management course arranged by the Human Resources
department of the large international food manufacturing group which had acquired BonPain one
year earlier. Reflecting on this course in the context of the complexity and variety of his daily
job, Frederic decided to carry a dictaphone around for a day and record what he actually did. He
chose a Wednesday in mid-October, which he considered would be a typical day in his working
life. Later, his secretary carefully transcribed the tape as follows...
7:55
Arrived at work, parked, walked to office.
8:00 to 8:15
Checked e-mail which included:
→ Productivity report for yesterday's output (obviously well below target!).
→ Quality report for last week, unfortunately showing above-average levels of scrap.
→ A note from the night-shift plant engineering supervisor, reporting a serious four-hour
breakdown during the night on the fastest baguette line. He contends that this was not the
result of any lack of maintenance; it had apparently been caused by a failure of the
production operatives to stop the machine quickly and correctly when the conveyors were
jammed by a major material spillage.
→ A note from Warehousing and Dispatch reporting that today's routine deliveries to our
largest customer, Hypera (a supermarket group), could not be delivered at the scheduled
times because of the production breakdown.

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 Introdução e estratégia de Operações

→ One from an external equipment supplier, F-Robot, confirming their technical

consultant's visit today at 11 :30 to discuss one of the latest automation projects at the
plant
→ A request from Charles Lamouche, the Marketing Director, for an urgent discussion
about production trials for one of the new product introduction projects. Replied,
asking if he would be able to come to my office at 15:00.
8:15 to 9:00
Daily first tour of factory with the morning supervisor and the Senior Maintenance
Engineer.
→ During the tour it was pointed out that one of the three baguette production lines
had only just restarted working. It had broken down in the middle of the night due
to a bearing failure.
→ Spent about 15 minutes in discussion with a group of production operatives who
were concerned about our regular requests for extra staff to run the third line at the
weekend. Although reluctant to come in, they were persuaded that we did need the
extra output to satisfy demand, which had recently grown by around five per cent due
to an export order for the UK.
→ Noted that the finished baguettes from Line 1 (the oldest line) were showing wide
variation in baked colour (but within the control limits) and asked to see the Quality
Control charts, but routine notes on these did not highlight any reason for variations.
Arranged for Pierre Moulin (the Quality Manager) to investigate root cause and to
report back later.
→ Was informed that we had run out of prepared apricots yet again, stopping sched-
uled production of the most popular Danish-style patisserie. Reminded me that I
need to discuss this with Purchasing Manager, since this is the third stock-out this
week!
→ Spotted a guard missing from one of the conveyor drives. Plant Engineer arranging
replacement this morning - temporary guard put in place immediately.
→ Excessive flour and fat spillage in mixing room. Appears to be caused by carelessness,
perhaps lack of training of night-shift operatives. Waste of this type severely erodes our
tight profit margins. Will follow this up at meeting.
9:00 to 10:00
Regular scheduled morning meeting with: the three production line supervisors; supervisors
from the mixing department, patisserie assembly and baking areas, and freezer warehouse;
Pierre Moulin, the Quality Manager; and Monique Dumas, the Production Planning and
Control Manager. The normal agenda included an overview of the previous day's production
statistics, and of the rolling one-week averages including:
→ the total output of each main production line;
→ performance against schedule per specific product;
→ utilisation and efficiency measures, and graphs showing these over 12 months;
→ records of delivery performance: on-time delivery of ordered quantities;
→ quality statistics: scrap levels for products and packaging.

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 Introdução e estratégia de Operações

Supervisors provided explanations of problems, and occasionally some suggestions on their

resolution and prevention. However, many small improvements were increasingly being
undertaken by kaizen (continuous improvement) teams. Generally, these were done on a
day-to-day basis, without great supervisor intervention.
The meeting then continued by looking at forecast requirements for the next week and for
the next three months. Monique pointed out that the market forecast suggested growth in
bread sales of about two per cent per month, but only very slight growth for patisseries. She
was concerned that it would be necessary to arrange increased levels of overtime to cover
this extra demand and that there might be resistance from the operators, since they had
already been working excessive levels of overtime over the last few months. It was certainly
the time to consider purchasing a fourth baguette line!
Pierre was concerned that this pressure on output could lead to further deterioration in
quality performance, which could not only create customer complaints, but might also lead
to rising levels of scrap and waste. I also know that Monique is really getting stressed by the
increasing prospect of being unable to meet a big customer's delivery schedule. Many
supermarkets are trying to reduce their frozen inventory to only one or two days' demand, so
if we fail to deliver, stores could be out of bread and then there will be big trouble! It's not
made any easier by the pattern of consumer demand - up to twice as much bread and
patisseries are sold in supermarkets on Fridays and Saturdays than on any other shopping
day. We must address these issues when preparing our next operations strategy report.
I brought the team's attention to the apparently increasing levels of spilt materials (on the
floor) observed on the morning tour. They agreed that a team would be formed to look at
underlying causes of such waste.
10:00 to 11:30
Mostly alone in my office. I wanted to begin looking at the detail of proposals to automate
the packing lines. If we make the right choice, it should be possible to eliminate two people
per line by the robotisation of final packing. However, the equipment to do this is very
expensive, with the best solutions seeming to be tailor-made for specific types of bread. This
would therefore limit the future flexibility of this equipment. However, the project looked
promising in terms of my calculations of the payback period, and I was therefore looking
forward to the visit of our preferred supplier.
Some of this time spent reviewing Monique's calculations of the future capacity
requirements of the plant. Use of overtime to provide extra capacity can only continue for a
matter of months before that alone will not provide the solution. It is going to be necessary
to invest in another line sooner rather than later if we are to avoid delivery problems in the
coming spring. I should discuss the market forecast by volume and types with the Marketing
Director, so I rang his secretary and ma de an appointment to talk with him this afternoon.
There were four phone calls during this period:
→ Packaging supplier to discuss quality problem with one size of folding cardboard cases
supplied in September. Agreed compensation/replacements and process changes to
ensure non-recurrence.
→ Group's IT consultant wanted to arrange a meeting with the Production team concerning
implementation of new Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) system within the
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project. This would take over inventory control and
placing of call-off orders currently done by two clerks in the Planning and Control
Department.

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 Introdução e estratégia de Operações

→ Discussion with Charles Lamouche about an opportunity to supply premium quality

baguettes to a major sandwich/coffee bar chain. To win this order would require new
process controls for bread quality, since the texture and general quality specification is
known to be exceptionally demanding for this customer. It expects suppliers to use
statistical process control (SPC) for several variables (weight, dimensions, moisture
content) and attributes (colour, appearance, crustiness). This is much more demanding
than the specification of any other customer.
→ Message from Sales to expect a call from Sophie Chevalier, the Purchasing Director of
Hypera, who wanted assurances directly from me that today's delivery problems would
never reoccur. I have met her on several occasions when she first agreed to do business
with us; she and her team had thoroughly inspected our facilities and quality control
systems. I am not looking forward to her call!
11:30 to 12:30
Meeting with technical representatives of F-Robot, along with our Factory Engineer and Method
Study Engineer. My main concern was to understand the flexibility of the proposed robot
packers. There appears to be a choice between two types: high speed, specially-configured
machines which can easily keep up with any future output speed of the improved standard
baguette fines; and slower machines which are easy to adapt for different shapes and sizes of
bread and even patisseries. The representatives also showed us information on state-of-the-art
flexible equipment being developed for assembly of complex food products like patisseries.
We will clearly have to evaluate all these options on the basis of what return on capital
investment could be achieved. However; there are also operations' issues to be considered in
terms of capacity, flexibility, reliability and ease of maintenance, spare parts inventory, quality
(will they be gentle enough to not cause damage? - trials will have to be conducted) and training
of operators and maintenance staff.
12:30 to 13:00
Lunch in company restaurant. Sat with a group of supervisors from the Patisserie Production
Department. Although generally very friendly and relaxed, I noted that they seemed to want to
move the conversation towards the kaizen activities taking place in their department. I suggested
that two of them come to my office immediately after lunch!
13:00 to 13:40
Continued discussion on kaizen. The supervisors were obviously still under the impression that
this initiative was undermining their management role in the department since operatives were
analysing problems, assessing solutions and implementing them with very little input from the
supervisors. They were concerned that the operatives would not need supervision if this
continued! I assured them that this was not the case, but that their role would gradually change
and that their continued involvement and attention to detail was critical to the success of the
department. (I must ensure that I sit down with Personnel to work out the future role and
training needs of supervisors.) One of them was clearly under the impression that kaizen
was simply a new version of total quality management - and that had not been a total
success when we attempted it five years ago!
13:40 to 15:00
Another tour of the factory. Spent most of this time looking at SPC charts in each
department because there was some evidence that these were not being used correctly. We
may have to undertake some more training in this area if we are to get the full benefits of
SPC.

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 Introdução e estratégia de Operações

Then spent some time with the Plant Engineer looking at possible locations for the
installation of packing robots. The current packing area is badly laid out and needs
reconfiguration, so I hope we can combine the installation of new equipment with a
redesign of this area of the factory.
Finally, a short time looking at the freezer room, where we must consider capacity
expansion. The increasing range and volume of product has recently led to a shortage of
storage space. Also, if some of our large customers are moving towards Just-In-time (JIT)
deliveries, it may be necessary for us to support this with slightly increased inventory
levels. The time has come for us to do a more detailed analysis of inventory, and if we
leave this too late, we may end up having to rent more expensive storage space at external
deep-freeze warehouses.
On the way back to the office, passed the training room where a kaizen team was
conducting a brainstorming session. Did not interrupt this.
15:00 to 15:45
Scheduled meeting with Charles Lamouche, Marketing Director, and Sara Lepont, Product
Development Manager, concerning development of a new range of minipatisseries. The
concept is to supply products of about a third of the normal size, which can be used at
parties and receptions. Market research indicates a big potential growth in this type of
'snacking'. However, these products will be significantly more difficult to make on our
existing equipment and will require the development of new recipes and packaging which
would together reduce the drying-out of the products during the freezing stages. Although
the recipes have proved successful in the trial kitchens, the time had come for full-scale
production trials within the factory; most of the meeting was spent agreeing an outline
schedule for this work. I reported on the capital equipment requirements for this project.
15:45 to 17:00
Began writing my monthly report for the monthly Board meeting. This summarises the
production statistics for the previous month, and requires an explanation for any significant
shortfall. The main problems reported included: lower than budgeted levels of productivity;
and material usage variances which indicate an above-average level of waste and scrap. I
reported on the actions being taken to improve process control. I also reported that the
decline in productivity was largely caused by last-minute schedule changes which were
outside the control of production management.
The next section included details of capital requirements for new equipment needed over
the next two years. Many of these items had already been included in the main capital
budget, but the need for some new items had arisen as a result of changes in capacity
requirements and unforeseen new product developments.
I finally reported on each of the new product development projects for which I was responsible,
including a set of Gantt charts showing progress. For each project there was a short explanation
of the successes to date, and the main problems yet to be overcome.
Several phone calls during this period:
→ Report from the Quality Manager that the variation in colour of baguettes on Line 1 had
now been traced to a faulty burner control in the main oven. The plant maintenance team
was preparing to replace the failed component during the scheduled weekend shutdown
of this line.

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→ Report from the production supervisors in each department on output against daily target.
Each section was on-schedule at this stage in the day. Good!
→ Purchasing advised me that there was a potential delivery problem with important
packaging from one of our main suppliers. They had had a serious fire in one of
their plants, and were endeavouring to switch production to another. They assured
us that everything was being done to ensure continuing supply. I phoned Monique
to alert her to this situation, and asked her to continue to liaise with Purchasing.
→ The expected call from Sophie Chevalier, complaining about today's late delivery to
Hypera. Not a pleasant call, so I will not record the details here! The conclusion was that
she will be sending an audit team to look at our planning and control procedures, and the
plant maintenance systems. She is seeking assurance that these always give priority to
production for Hypera. She also wants to know what we are doing about preventative
maintenance (and in particular condition monitoring) so we will have to give that some
attention before her visit!
17:00 to 18:00
Final plant tour. This afternoon I spent most of my time in the patisserie production area.
Everything seemed to be going well, but there was the usual daily build-up of stock awaiting
transfer to the freezer room. There always seems to be a capacity imbalance in this department.
For now, the bottleneck is clearly caused by the availability of forklift trucks and drivers.
There are some material flow problems in this area which will need addressing before output
volumes increase. I must arrange a meeting with the Industrial Engineer and production
supervisors to discuss the issues and potential solutions. Because of the wide range of products,
it is unlikely that we will be able to automate many of the processes, but some simple solutions
could help to increase productivity.
I am also concerned about the relatively small batch sizes made in this area. The last time we
calculated economic batch quantities for patisseries was about two years ago. Since then demand
has increased significantly, so it may be possible to increase batch quantities, which would give
us greater capacity because of the reduction in the number of set-ups, We have also recently
done some work on reducing set-up time, which will also have an effect on economic batch
quantities.
In general, there is a high degree of specialisation in this area. Many of the operators do the same
job all day, every day. I know that the Human Resource Manager is concerned that this may lead
to repetitive strain injury (RSI), so it is appropriate that we should look to more job rotation and
enlargement. This should give more variety in individual operators' tasks, reducing the risks of
RSI. This will be included as an important topic at our next departmental meeting.
18:00 to 18:10
Final check of production performance for today. Everything seems to be going well!
Checked e-mail - only one significant new message, from the Operations Director. He is
arranging a meeting with all his managers to begin work on the annual strategic review. This
looks like being a big task ahead for me and the production team.
18:10
End of day, thank goodness. It's really amazing to see where my time goes! What a range of
different things I seem to have been involved in today. But really, it is like that every day.
End of taped record!

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 Introdução e estratégia de Operações
1. Por exemplo, a qualidade é considerada um qualificador de pedidos para a maioria das indústrias. Assim, por exemplo, a indústria
automobilística enfrenta consumidores que esperam qualidade como um dado e não a percebem como vencedora de pedidos.

Os qualificadores de pedidos são atributos necessários que um produto deve possuir para que possa entrar em competição. Os vencedores de
pedidos, no entanto, são os atributos "vencedores" que levam os clientes a comprar um produto
Questions
1) Which are the order qualifiers and order winners of BonPain?
2) Which different production processes are being used by BonPain? Justify.
3) Analyse the many things that Frederic does during his typical day. You should group these in
terms of the five categories below:
a. Strategic
b. Design
c. Planning and control
d. Improvement
e. Other (specify)
4) Identify the capacity problem the company is facing right now. Which solutions should be
considered?
5) Which are the functions of an Operations Manager?
6) In what ways can Frederic's operations contribute to the competitive advantage of the
company?
7) Assess the approximate proportions of Frederic's time that is spent on long-term and on
short-term issues. Do you think this is typical of operations managers in other industries (for
example, banking, leisure, automotive component manufacture)?

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