Kristen’s Cookie Co

Kristen's Cookie Co

1. How long will it take for you to fill a rush order? It would take the team 26 minutes. The rush order itself of would require 7 steps as follows (the total cycle time is listed in parentheses):

• Clean Bowl, Add ingredients, and Mix (06:00 mins)

• Dish Cookies onto Tray* (02:00 mins)

• Put Cookies in Oven, Set Timer & Temp*(01:00 mins)

• Baking * (09:00 mins)

• Remove cookies and cool (05:00 mins)

• Bag cookies* (02:00 mins)

• Accept payment (01:00 mins)

TOTAL 26:00 mins

*Per Dozen cookies. I am assuming that this rush order is for 12 cookies (1 dozen) only.

2. How many orders can you fill in a night, assuming you are open four hours each night?

4 hours is 240 minutes. Since there are some steps that do not increase exponentially with each batch (dozen) cookies you make, the time to cook 2 dozen or 3 dozen is not, “26 mins x 2” or “26 mins x 3”. Instead here is what it takes to make 3 dozen cookies which is the capacity of (first step) the mixing bowl itself.

• Clean Bowl, Add ingredients, and Mix (06:00 mins) same for 3 dozen 06:00 mins

• Dish Cookies onto Tray* (02:00 mins) x 3 dozen = 06:00 mins

• Put Cookies in Oven, Set Timer & Temp*(01:00 mins) x 3 dozen = 03:00 mins

• Baking * (09:00 mins) x 3 dozen = 27:00 mins

• Remove cookies and cool (05:00 mins) same for 3 dozen 05:00 mins

• Bag cookies* (02:00 mins) x 3 dozen = 06:00 mins

3 doz TOTAL 53 mins

If the team produced 3 dozen cookies every 53 minutes, they would be able to complete 4.53 cycles which is equivalent to 13.59 dozen cookies. Now, since there is really no such thing as a half cycle, we have to round down (and assume that the team stops after their 4th cycle knowing that they do not have enough time to complete a 5th round of baking) so we get:

Preparing cookies for the 240 mins that they are open each day equates to 4 baking cycles of 3 dozen cookies per cycle = 12 dozen cookies or 12 order assuming each order is for 1 dozen cookies in the four hours that they are open every night.

3. How much of your own and your roommate's valuable time will it take to fill each order?

My time: I only perform the steps below which total 8 mins.

Task Duration Time Start End Pred Resource

Clean Bowl, Add ingredients, and Mix 6m 8:00 AM 8:06 AM Me

Dish Cookies onto Tray 2m 8:06 AM 8:08 AM 1 Me

My roommate performs all other tasks which total 4 mins.

Task Duration Time Start End Pred Resource

Put Cookies in Oven, Set Timer & Temp 1m 8:08 AM 8:09 AM 2 Roommate

Bag cookies 2m 8:23 AM 8:25 AM 5 Roommate

Accept payment 1m 8:25 AM 8:26 AM 6 Roommate

4. Because your baking trays can hold exactly one dozen cookies, you will produce and sell cookies by the dozen. Should you give any discount for people who order two dozen cookies, three dozen cookies, or more? If so, how much?

Will it take any longer to fill a two-dozen cookie order than a one-dozen cookie order?

The only reason you give a discount for larger orders is if either or both of these conditions occur: 1. The cost of your raw materials decrease because you are able to get a discount from a supplier for purchasing larger quantities of those raw materials from him/her. 2. Your resource (labor) costs decrease because you achieve some kind of “economies of scale” or efficiency by producing larger orders.

This case does not tell us anything about costs of raw materials decreasing so we will ignore that and focus on resource costs.

We have already established above in