Essay Sample on McDonald's Stock Management System

McDonald's is one of the top food chains in the world. It has worldwide recognition with hundreds of branches in different countries. It is safe to say that McDonald's has successfully created a dominant food service business. McDonald's, on average, serves millions of people every day. However, all businesses face challenges, and McDonald's is no different than any other food service corporation (Reed, 2019). Some of their most popular items include hamburgers, cheeseburgers, McNuggets, and French fries (Reed, 2019). They are also known for carrying delicious desserts such as apple pies and chocolate chip cookies. Managing such a huge corporation is not an easy task, McDonald's has a system put in place to ensure that all the process runs smoothly, however, some operations like stock management has proved to be a challenge for the corporation. A stock management system will help in managing the organization's stock, stock management systems are ideal for big corporations they ensures that the day-to-day process run smoothly.

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The biggest problem facing McDonald's restaurants today is the inability to manage their stock. Due to the lack of a sound system, the company loses revenue as products go to waste. McDonald's has to manage its inventory while trying to keep up with the needs of their customers. It is a tough task to manage customers and keep their stock status accurate with their business operations. The organization's supply system is the root cause of these losses if the company adopts a method that streamlines the supply system, the losses will be avoided.

A sound stock management system is necessary for any organization in the food industry. A sound inventory management system has to maintain appropriate inventory levels; too much inventory, especially perishable goods, can be costly (Reed, 2019). The proposed system will help in controlling and balancing incoming and outgoing merchandise. The proposed system is advantageous for several reasons (Macdonald, 2019).

The proposed system will balance both the supply and demand. Having an adequate amount of a particular commodity to meet the needs of customers is vital for both customer service and an increase in sales (Gallino et al., 2017). If a customer walks into a restaurant looking for fries and fries are out of stock, the sale will be automatically lost, and there are high chance that the customer will go to the competitor. The proposed system will identify sales trends and prepare for customer needs.

The stock management system will streamline the organization's operations. The system will help McDonald's maintain a proper inventory of the supplies that are necessary for the production of the end products. If one component is missing in the stock, the whole production process will either come to a standstill or be interrupted. Streamlined operations are the key to an active and productive business.

The system will come in handy in lead time adjustments. The system will help in determining when certain items are supposed to be ordered and predict future shortages or surpluses. Some products take longer to be received from the suppliers, and the system will be able to account for lead time. For example, if a McDonald's branch is going to have a mega sale of cheeseburgers, but the burgers take longer than three days to arrive, and the cheese takes five days to reach, the stock management system will ensure that all the items are there in time for sale.

Another advantage of the stock management system is that it reduces liabilities and loss that is usually caused by overstocking. The same way the system monitors supply and demand, it will also notice declines in sales or certain occurrences and avoid ordering certain products (Gallino et al., 2017). For example, if a McDonald's branch is having a mega sale of a specific drink, it may end up ordering additional stock to meet the demand. However, the system has to analyze the sales before ordering more stock based on the spike in sales. Otherwise, the branch may have more stock than it can handle, forcing it to purchase at discount prices.

The proposed system will lead to an organized warehouse. A warehouse that is not organized will make work harder for the management and McDonald's branches in organizing their inventory. The system will optimize the warehouses, placing the highest selling products together where they are easily accessible. This, in turn, speeds up the order fulfillment process and keeps the customers well served and satisfied.

The proposed system will also help in saving time and money. A sound stock management system can have real-time and monetary benefits. The system will help McDonald's branches to keep track of all the products they have on hand and those ordered; this will help managers to save time that they would otherwise use to recount and ensure all the orders are accurate (Macdonald, 2019). The stock management system will also help in saving money that could be wasted on the slow-moving stock. The most slow-moving stock has to be sold at low prices or worse they may be dumped if they are perishable.

The sales department is responsible for identifying the stock available. The sales department ensures that all the McDonald's branches in a particular region receive products. Request two is a platform where the sales clerk can check the stocks available. Request three is the McDonald's head office, and it is responsible for updating inventory and overseeing the day-to-day business of all the branches. Request four is where all the orders are consolidated, request five acts as the branch, and sends sales information while request six acts as the warehouse; it offers all the stock details.

The first step is providing the branch's information; the information is then crossed checked with the data in the database, then the next step is ordering the items needed, the sales clerk on the other hand records every transaction and stores it in the database. Recording all the operations will help in analyzing data and help prevent food wastage in the future.

There are four main actors; Sales Clerk, Warehouse, head office, and McDonald's branch. The sales clerk identifies the stock needed, and checks the stock available that has been provided by the head office. The sales clerk then creates a sale order for the McDonald's branch; this order has to be verified by the warehouse to ensure that there are no shortages or surpluses. Once the McDonald's branch has approved the order request, the warehouse sends parked stock info to the McDonald's branch before they receive the new stock. Once all the transactions are complete, the McDonald's branch sends a sale report to the head office; this will help in the analysis and help in improving services as well as cutting on food waste.

References

Gallino, S., Moreno, A., & Stamatopoulos, I. (2017). Channel integration, sales dispersion, and inventory management. Management Science, 63(9), 2813-2831.

Macdonald, G. J. (2019). Single-Use Technology Has Biopharma Sizing Up the Recycling Bin: Disposables may not be as disposable as biopharma would like, but the benefits of single-use technology far outweigh the waste management issues. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, 39(8), 50-53.

Reed, E. (2019). History of McDonald's. Retrieved from https://www.thestreet.com/markets/history-of-McDonald's-15128096