Instead of allowing individual franchisees to source products and perishable fruits and vegetables, McDonalds relies on an enterprise-wide quality management and food compliance division in Chicago as well (Hoffman, 2006). This ensures that all audits of their product quality can be quickly analyzed for any variation and acted on fast to ensure consistency of customer experience with each McDonald's product. The integration of quality management and the supply chain in the Chicago areas also provides the company with greater control over VMI and advanced planning and scheduling operations. The individual franchisees are then freed up to focus on expanding in their local markets as the core areas of the supply chain are managed by McDonalds' at the corporate level.

Conclusion

McDonald's concentrates first on a consistent and high quality user experience, and then creates the...

A large part of this effort is based on creating a supply chain and quality management program that can support a very fast-moving repetitive focused strategy. All of the subsystems and quality management processes are centered on the user experience in a franchise, which is why the centralization of the supply chain is so critical. Chicago was a natural location for this operation as it provides many cost and time saving advantages given its central location in the U.S.
References

Cramer, M.. (2009). The Emerging Role of Operations Research at McDonald's. OR-MS Today, 36(4), 22.

William Hoffman (2006, February). They're Lovin' Logistics. Traffic World,20.

David Walters, & Mark Rainbird. (2004). The demand chain as an integral component of the value chain. The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 21(7),…