Process Selection

Dunkin Donuts (DD) have medium variety of products and medium quantity is produced according to their daily demand. Overall the company could be viewed as it uses a batch method of flow process since they follow a combination of line and project. DD offers different verities of products, like beverages, bakery items, breakfast, lunch, and already manufactured products like cool drinks and water. Each product goes through a flow path and it uses general- purpose equipment such as oven, refrigerator, microwave oven, coffee maker, and blender; even though all the equipment is not used in producing all products. The workers at DD are expected to work in team. Instead of specialization on any task (like in line process), every one of them are capable of doing any task so as to keep up with the work load. DD offers drive through serving as well as front customer counter serving. Thus they make sure fresh and exact customer expectations are accomplished in a fastest way. Any member working at DD should be able to do order taking at drive through or front counter, through prepare the orders, and bake the items freshly once the display run out of stock to keep a clean, pleasant, attractive environment for the customers. Depending on the product type customer order process varies. When they produce bakery products such as Donuts, they already bake them for the day and have them in the display and sell them instantly. Make to stock’ method of customer order is used in these type of products. They same type is followed with muffins, Danish, Brownies, and like that. When it comes to cool drinks and water in bottles, the products are already bought from the suppliers and it is followed ‘make to stock’ method when a customer makes an order. This comes under the process characteristics matrix of batch/MTS.Hot and cold beverages, breakfast, and sandwiches are made instantly when a customer place an order so as to ensure standard quality. For example, when a customer orders for coffee, they can customize it by selecting the amount of sugar, milk, and size. They can add any flavor in it. When the customer order for a sandwich, even though it has a standard ingredients in it, the order can be still customized by the customer by selecting the type of bread, cheese, as well as the other ingredients. In these cases the ingredients are already made to stock and they are used to come out with the exact requirement of the customer. The optimum efficiency and effectiveness is attained through going with batch process and ATO method of customer order. They fall into in the process characteristics matrix of batch/ ATO.Another type would be, smoothies come in one size with different flavors. When a customer buys for a strawberry smoothie, it is made under ‘make to order’ type and batch/MTO process characteristic matrix.

Some of the factors influencing the process selection of Dunkin Donuts are Market conditions, Capital Requirements, Labor, and Technology.
The company should consider the Market conditions first. The batch flow approach would have a high product variety and a custom market type. Some capital requirements should also be considered. If the company wanted a great deal of capital then the process they should use would be the assemble-line process rather than the batch flow. The third factor would be the cost of labor. The batch flow process would consist of costly skilled workers where the factory line approach would be more inexpensive and low skilled labor. The last factor to consider for both product and process is Technology. There are risks in productions coming along that will make the process obsolete before the costs are recovered. The risk in order from highest to lowest would be assembly line, batch, and project.

Dunkin donuts cannot adopt mass customization, because fast changeover will take to long and you wouldn't be to have much control on the different of variation which will also decrease your chance of maximizing profit. Dunkin Donuts possible adopts the modular production of the mass customization method probably because by using the modular production and assemble to order. Which also build subassemblies in advance of demand, which is really important at dunkin donuts, so when the customer order is received, the subassemblies are taken from inventory and assembled together to fill the customers order.