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Case Study Essay
Nippon Sushi and Sashimi Shack
Chapter 6
Nippon Sushi and Sashimi Shack is a family-owned business that operates on the Gulf Coast. The company already uses both financial and point-of-sale (POS) software, but has been unable to find a suitable system to manage its inventory and purchase orders. You are an independent consultant who has been hired to develop an inventory and order system for the company.
Background
Nippon Sushi purchases a variety of seafood (tuna, mackerel, shrimp, eel, crab, etc.) from local fishing boats and fresh vegetables from local farmers to make sushi and sashimi. Other food products are purchased from an Asian grocery wholesaler. Nippon Sushi sells its products through a variety of outlets, most notably its restaurant. The company sells prepackaged sushi and sashimi to supermarkets, hospitals, and other companies for resale. To ensure profitability, the company prices its products based on the estimated material cost that goes into producing them. Restaurant food is sold at cost plus 200 percent, wholesale orders are sold to retailers at cost plus 60 percent and smaller orders including catering events are sold at cost plus 100 percent. Due to the volatility in prices of seafood, menu prices are updated on a regular basis.
Currently, the company uses a journal to record its purchases and orders. Any employee can add, edit, or strike out a journal entry. When new seafood or vegetable products arrive, employees must record the type, total weight, and cost as a new journal entry. A spreadsheet is used to keep track of inventory totals. Wholesale and retail prices are manually calculated and entered into the POS software. Inventory is pulled out of stock on a first in, first out basis.
As the business continues to grow, this system is becoming less viable. Some of the shortcomings include:
1. Employees sometimes make clerical mistakes or forget to record transactions.
2. When the inventory holds a particular type of seafood or produce that has been purchased at different times and costs, it is difficult to determine the correct cost bases and some older food is spoiling before getting sold because food preparers are taking out stock in the wrong order.
3. Sales prices have to be manually calculated, a process that can take a lot of time to complete.
You have completed the systems planning phase; the next step is to create an object-oriented model of the inventory and orders system.
Tasks
1. Create a use case diagram for an inventory and order system.
2. Create a class diagram for classes you would expect to find in Nippon Sushi’s system.
3. Create a sequence diagram for some aspect of the new system.
4. Create a state transition diagram that describes a changing state in the system.
Case Study Analysis Rubric
Criteria
Criteria Description
Point Value
Score
Formatting
Your case study is properly formatted, using appropriate headings and subheadings: case title centered on first page; student name in upper left corner of
document header
(this is non-APA); running title in upper right corner of
document header
; page number to be included as part of running header -or- bottom right of
document footer
; use of
sub-headings
for ease of reading (Case Overview – or something similar; Key Issues; Alternatives; Alternative Evaluation; Recommendation);
grammar
and
spelling
count here. You should not have any spelling errors!
30
References
Your write-up should include all reference material, including the textbook and in some cases, the case article itself. You may also be asked to find outside references to support your points. References should be listed alphabetically by author’s last name on your reference page. If you didn’t cite it in the body of your work, don’t include it on your reference page.
You should follow APA (6th Edition) in all citations.
30
Case Overview
Summarizes background information of the company under study and states the main issue(s) facing the company. Be sure that what you include here is important to the case. For example, the company being located in Colorado is not typically something that would be considered important. However, if the company being located in Colorado plays a key role in the issues(s) being studied or decision(s) to be made, then it warrants mention (e.g. if your case study covered the Denver International Airport, location is important)
30
Key Issues
Identifies the key issues facing the company and discusses why they are issues (the
WHY
part being an important aspect of this section of your write-up). The
WHAT
(issues) are usually clearly laid out in the case write-up. You may have to work a little more to identify the
WHY
part.
30
Alternative Courses
of Action
This section should discuss what the company
could have
done to address they key issues. You may include what the company actually did, but your analysis should go beyond this. Think outside the box here. You may want to number or letter each of your alternatives so that you can use that same numbering/lettering scheme as you evaluate each course of action in the next section (i.e. more levels of sub-headings would be nice here – it’s makes reading your document much easier). In addition to what the company actually did, you should come up with 2-3 other alternatives. This is one key area where you can demonstrate your
analytical skills
.
60
Evaluation of Alternatives
This section should discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each alternative you identified in the above section – what the company could potentially
gain
and what the company could potentially
lose
– by adopting this alternative. This can include such things as cost, increased or decreased productivity, and resistance to change, etc. This is another key area where you can demonstrate your
analytical skills
.
60
Recommendation
You need to make a recommendation! It could be the same as what the company actually did or it could be one of your other alternatives. In this section you should discuss why each of the other alternatives is not best for the company at this point time (again, WHY being the key point here).
60
Deliverables
100
Total Points
400
