Abstract
A company presents different issues concerning its supply chain system. As we can see, there are 51 stores spread in 10 states. This seems to be a lot to manage for only one operator working out of Ohio. 9 of the 10 markets are over 1,000 miles away. We can also see that the different stores offer different menus since they deal with local suppliers, who may not offer products similar to the ones in the other stores. The 51 stores get what they find locally and it may vary from one store to another. This is the result of the hybrid supply system, which tries to use both a centralized system for dried products and local suppliers for fresh products. It is thus, too diversified. Another issue is the short-life of some products, like vegetables, etc. The demand is pretty unequal all the year long, and many factors make it vary. It is hard to forecast demand and consequently, they may have large losses with those short-life products, which cannot be kept too long. In the different factors that make the demand vary, we can find seasons, holidays, weather, etc.
