Essay About Healthlite Yogurt Company And Business Processes

Redesigning Business Processes for Healthlite Yogurt Company
Redesigning Business Processes for Healthlite Yogurt Company
Healthlite Yogurt Company, a U.S. market leader in yogurt
and related health products, is experiencing sharp growing
pains. Healthlites sales have tripled over the past five years.
However, new local competitors, offering fast delivery from
local production centers and lower prices, are challenging
Healthlite for retail shelf space with a bevy of new products.
Healthlite needs to justify its share of shelf space to grocers
and is seeking additional shelf space for its new yogurt-based
products such as frozen desserts and low-fat salad dressings.
Yogurt has a very short shelf life measured in days, and must
be moved very quickly.
Healthlites corporate headquarters is in Danbury,
Connecticut. Corporate headquarters has a central mainframe
computer that maintains most of the major business
databases. All production takes place in processing plants
that are located in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Tennessee,
Illinois, Colorado, Washington, and California. Each processing
plant has its own minicomputer, which is connected
to the corporate mainframe. Customer credit verification is
maintained at corporate headquarters, where customer master
files are maintained and order verification or rejection is
determined. Once processed centrally, order data are then
fed to the appropriate local processing plant minicomputer.
Healthlite has 20 sales regions, each with approximately 30
sales representatives and a regional sales manager. Healthlite
has a 12-person marketing group at corporate headquarters.
Each salesperson is able to store and retrieve data for assigned
customer accounts using a terminal in the regional office
linked to the corporate mainframe. Reports for individual
salespeople (printouts of orders, rejection notices, customer
account inquiries, etc.) and for sales offices are printed in the
regional offices and mailed to them.
Sometimes, the only way to obtain up-to-date sales data is
for managers to make telephone calls to subordinates