Shazi Visram graduated from Columbia Business School in May 2004 and founded Happy Family organic baby food company two years later with a mission to "change the trajectory of children's health through nutrition." The company launched in 2006 with a line of frozen organic baby foods, switching to an innovative package design --pouched packaging-- in 2009. Gaining the attention of both investors and consumers-and praised for its commitment to quality control, Happy Family experienced impressive growth. In 2018 Visram, who had been called a "rock star CEO" by then-President Obama, stepped down and appointed Anne Larraway to lead the company. By 2019, Happy Family was the largest player in the organic baby strained/wet food market and the third largest player in the total US strained/wet baby food market-and pouches, which were virtually unheard of when Happy Family began selling them, made up an estimated 25% of the baby food market.
Tony Gascon, general manager for magnetic resonance (MR) value stream operations at GE Healthcare, was preparing for the monthly meeting with the supply chain and inventory management teams, during which they would revise their forecasts for the next quarter. After the meeting, aggregate production schedules based on the forecasts would be locked and pushed to the factories. As Gascon was about to head to the conference room, an e-mail with some startling information came from GE's chief productivity officer. A corporate review revealed that the components of each MR machine traveled more than 260,000 miles before final installation. A full mapping of the supply chain exposed an elaborate logistics structure with myriad technical challenges. Due to this complexity, producing precise forecasts would be more critical than ever, since any uncertainty would be amplified. As the teams met, they explored ways to simplify the structure and reduce the number of miles each machine traveled despite production facilities on three continents, global supply sources, stringent regulatory guidelines, increased competition, and the complexity in the creation and transport of the components. Based on their discussion, Gascon challenged the teams to improve the accuracy of their forecasts, and to better match supply with demand. What steps could they take to simplify/consolidate the logistics structure to make it more efficient? How could they leverage the emerging additive technology to disrupt the supply chain?
This case teaches the impact of variability on process performance. In 2009, media coverage of long wait times in a local hospital brought considerable embarrassment to the state secretary of health. The hospital, located in a midsize European city, had the only emergency care facility in its metropolitan region. After the delays in care were brought to light, the secretary of health ordered the hospital's CEO to produce an action plan-and measurable progress-before the end of the month. But the CEO faced scarce resources and was already under pressure to reduce spending. What reforms should he make? Would he need to increase the emergency department's staff, and if so, how should he balance the costs? As this case explores the challenges of the healthcare industry, students learn to address questions of process mapping and operations.