Copper Kettle Catering

CASE STUDY

Assignment

Copper Kettle Catering

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INTRODUCTION

Copper Kettle Catering, established in 1972 is a catering company which started off with catering lunch for offices and growing into one of the largest catering businesses in North Carolina. They offer two types of services, ‘Deliver only’ and ‘Deliver and serve’.

The company was founded by Wayne and Janet Williams, working with them are a total of 10 full time employees. 2 of which are cooks and the rest 8 are food preparation workers. When in need of extra hands, the Williams employee part time employees according to the needs of serving.

The ‘Delivery only’ side of the business involves creating lunch boxes with simple food items such as sandwiches, salads, desserts and fruits. The ‘Deliver and serve’ side of the company focuses on large events such as weddings, parties, get-togethers, birthdays and anniversaries etc. Hence, they offer an exclusive menu ranging from full selections of hors d’oeuvres, entrees, beverages and special request items.

THEME OF THE CASE

This case is a classic example of competition increasing as the time passes by with the innovation of new business strategies to smoothen a company’s operation management to gain competitive advantage over those who lack these strategies.

The case states all the information about the operations of Copper Kettle Catering and the current situation where they are threatened by newer businesses in certain areas who targeted specific markets and optimized their entire operation according to that market, gaining competitive advantage over the Copper Kettle Catering in terms of cost.

The above incident forced the Copper Kettle Catering to rethink their strategies about getting the market and adopting operations management strategies. The owners of Copper Kettle Catering are introduced to the ‘Lean Systems’ concept and believe this is exactly what their company needs in order to stay competitive in the current market.

They were wondering if the Lean systems concept was applicable for a business that is based on service and not product manufacturing.

ISSUES IN THE CASE

Copper Kettle Company has been running their operations from 1972, starting from a small market segment of offices and growing into a complete catering business.

They have not changed how their operation works, which runs on very basic strategies such as:

In terms of service, taking orders by 10 am from customers