UV7397
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.
Production
The doughnut-making process consisted of four stages: (1) batching, (2) mixing, (3) production, and (4)
customizing. See Exhibit 1 for a layout of the process.
Stage 1: Batching
The batching stage started with an operator combining all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Water was
added first, followed by all of the dry ingredients contained in DCD’s proprietary doughnut recipe. It took
2 min. to place the ingredients in the mixing bowl.. The equipment could handle batches of dough of various
sizes ranging from just 2 lb. to over 20 lb. Each doughnut required exactly 2 oz. of dough.
Stage 2: Mixing
Once all of the ingredients had been combined, the batch was placed in the mixer. The mixing process
took 2.5 min. per batch, and the mixer turned off automatically at the end of the process. The store had
2 mixers.
This fictional case was prepared by Anderson Wasden (MBA ’18) under the supervision of Tim Kraft, Assistant Professor of Business Administration.
It was written as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  2017 by
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This document is authorized for use only in Prof. Ram Kumar P N 's Operations Management.; at IIM Kozhikode - EPGP Kochi Campus from Dec 2023 to Jun 2024.
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UV7397
Stage 3: Production
The production stage consisted of three steps: (1) extruding, (2) frying, and (3) glazing.
Extruding
After mixing, the dough was transferred into the extrusion machine container. There the dough was pushed
through cylindrical cutting attachments (cutters) that extruded the dough into individual pieces that would
eventually be turned into the finished doughnut. The machine used a set of 3 cutters. Each cutter could extrude
dough at a rate of 18 extrusions per minute. Therefore, using 3 cutters, the machine made doughnuts at a rate
of 54 doughnuts per minute.
The machine had to be set up before each batch was extruded. This included cleaning the machine from
the previous batch, cleaning the cutters, and adding the fresh batch of dough. The setup took approximately
1.5 min. per batch.
Frying
After being formed by the extruder, the doughnuts were dropped directly into hot shortening in a long and
narrow fryer. The fryer ran continuously and had sufficient space to handle as many doughnuts as the extrusion
machine provided. The doughnuts stayed in the fryer for 90 sec. Surface rods pushed the doughnuts through
the fryer.
Glazing
The fried doughnuts cooled on a conveyor for 45 sec. before passing through the glazing machine. The
cooling conveyor and glazer also ran continuously and had sufficient space to handle as many doughnuts as the
extrusion machine provided, so finished doughnuts were produced at the rate at which they were made by the
extrusion machine.
Stage 4: Customizing
In the customizing stage, doughnuts were customized to either be placed for sale at the counter or boxed
for specific customer orders. This step involved adding a range of different toppings—from traditional toppings
like sprinkles to unique toppings such as the Ellis Brothers’ world-famous pecans from right up the road. One
employee handled the customization step. On average, the employee was able to customize two doughnuts
every 3.5 sec.
The Problem
Johnson had noticed a disturbing trend. Each day, DCD was turning away customers because it was unable
to make enough doughnuts to meet demand. He needed to find a way to increase his capacity. One change
Johnson had considered was to increase the batch size. The standard batch size that he had instructed his
employees to use was 8 lb. The mixer and the extruder could handle much larger batches, however, he wanted
to keep the batches as small as possible so as to not wear out his equipment prematurely. Alternatively, the staff
had suggested there might be a way to keep the current batch size, and instead, focus on improving some of
the more manual steps in the current process to increase capacity. Finally, Johnson knew that the extruder could
be modified to operate with 6 cutters and increase the rate at which doughnuts could be extruded. He was
cautious regarding this option though since setting up the extruder for 6 cutters would take longer than the
setup time required for the existing 3 cutters.
This document is authorized for use only in Prof. Ram Kumar P N 's Operations Management.; at IIM Kozhikode - EPGP Kochi Campus from Dec 2023 to Jun 2024.
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UV7397
Exhibit 1
Dooly County Doughnuts
Doughnut-Making Process
Source: Created by author.
This document is authorized for use only in Prof. Ram Kumar P N 's Operations Management.; at IIM Kozhikode - EPGP Kochi Campus from Dec 2023 to Jun 2024.