Dooly County Doughnuts

Abstract

Dooly County Doughnuts (DCD), a south Georgia based doughnut shop, faces capacity issues as its sales continue to grow. As its doughnuts continue to increase in popularity, DCD must gain a better understanding of its current operational capacity. The DCD case captures three key concepts: capacity analysis, batches/setup times, and Little's Law. In particular, the case works well as a first time introduction to Little's Law. This case is suitable for an undergraduate or MBA introductory operations course, and works well as exam case. The material fits particularly well in a course module on process analysis. An example sequence could include: Pancho's Burrito (OM-1555), NoBull Burger (OM-1479), Dooly County Doughnuts, Czech-Mate (OM-1390), and Stonehaven (HBS 696-048). The material could be complimented with activities such as the face game and a teaching note on process analysis (e.g., OM-1556). Excerpt UVA-OM-1572 Rev. Dec. 13, 2017 Dooly County Doughnuts Dewey Johnson sat in his office contemplating the past year of operation of his Dooly County Doughnuts (DCD) shop located in Vienna, Georgia. DCD served walk-in customers, and also made doughnuts to be stocked at local grocery stores and coffee shops. Over the past year, Johnson had spent considerable time trying to increase sales but had not spent much time focused on the operations of the shop. Through his window, he could see the line for doughnuts extending well into the parking lot. While he was pleased with the results of his sales push, he realized he needed to assess his capacity and maybe consider expansion. Product Sales Doughnut production at DCD was currently limited to a single 8-hr. shift per day, 7 days per week. During peak hours, Johnson maintained a staff of 3 to 4 employees that was more than capable of running the highly automated process without any additional slowdowns. Currently Johnson sold, on average, 1,100 dozen doughnuts per day of all varieties. . . .