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6. Operational Plan
In this chapter, what can be expected is that Love Back’s operational plan will be described and demonstrated in order to show the efficiency of our business.
6.1. Layout of Website
Since we are the online platform, website will be the most important place for us in doing our business. Below is the layout of our website:
Figure 54: Love Back Website Layout In a website, there are 3 main important criteria that play significant roles:
Shopping Experience: Customers come and see the interactions within website, exploring the shopping options, understanding products selection and delivery process, get awareness of our brand and get answers for all the questions. Also, they should be able to give feedback to us.
Payment System: When customers decide to buy our product, they can proceed via our cart system, which will link further to financial institution’s payment site system.
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Information Subscription: In case customers appreciate our products and systems, they tend to wish to know more on the last information available from us. Social media is a good tool to keep them updated and reach to new potential customers.
6.2. Supplier Selection
Only trusted organic providers will be selected to be our supplier. Regardless of their appearance, we would like to ensure the quality of our products that they are safe to consume.
One of the ways to get the trusted is to find the ones with certified organic symbol.
Figure 55: Thailand’s Certified Organic Emblem
Apart from the commodity organic products, we also need to find the reliable partner for our box. They should be environmentally-friendly and strong enough to reuse at least 2 times.
6.3. Raw Materials
Our raw material is those organic products that we receive from farmers or vendors. These products might have imperfect features on them e.g. misshape vegetables and fruits, old-fashioned package of rice, beans, mushroom etc.
Figure 56: Example of Misshape Vegetables
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6.4. Production Process
In order to demonstrate our production process clearly, below is our production process illustrating the overall processes:
Figure 57: Love Back Production Process
In our production process, there are 5 steps, which will be explained further in operations.
6.5. Operations
1. Find The Right Supplier
There are many potential farms in Thailand. Our target will start from the ones that are near Bangkok so that we can control the freshness of products more easily. Also, the one in Nakorn Ratchasima provinces (3.5 hours from Bangkok by car) is also a good alternative since the climate there is suitable for growing salad vegetables.
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2. Raw Material Delivery to Inventory
After having signed exclusive agreement with our suppliers, delivery from their farms should be made to our inventory location. Ideal location for our inventory is a place near Bangkok. We will not need to install a large place, but we can utilize the space with vertical package storage. In this process, if the old package of the product is damaged or not in a good state, we will change to a new one.
3. Product Category and System Linkage
When the delivery from farmers arrive, the first thing to do is to categorize them into proper sorts e.g. kales, carrots, white rice, brown rice etc. This would facilitate the whole process further when packaging. Also, we would like to install censors into the storage cabinet to be able to count and link this automatically into our inventory system. This system will be shown for our customers in their beautified version as well.
4. Ordered place and boxing process starts
Our staff will see the real time order from our customer from a screen in our inventory. They will pack the products accordingly. If order is received from a call, call center staff will have to put in the order in the system immediately. To control the quality of the order, 1 staff need to pack all the products and 1 staff need to check the correctness of the order.
5. Delivery to our customers
When boxing is done, it will be delivered by our logistics partners. At the beginning, we plan to have one round of delivery per day. If the business starts to be good, we will increase rounds of delivery picks from partners. Our partners will also receive the used boxed from customers to our inventory. Each box will have QR-Code to
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ensure that customers really redeem the reuse options.
In all of our process, everything will be tracked. This will be beneficial for our own system improvement and also customers can keep updated on the most current status.
6.6. Production Plan
With the technology integration, one box needs to be packed within 30 minutes regardless of size. One employee should be able to pack at least 16 boxes each day. If we have 2 packing staff, it should be 32 boxes per day, 960 boxes per month or 11,520 boxes peryear. This should be the initial plan and we should consider the demand for the moment.
6.7. Inventory Management
Inventory is an important place for us; therefore, here is the layout of our inventory:
Figure 58: Love Back Inventory Layout
Beginning when raw goods enter our inventory, they will be categorized on the goods-in working table and put into the multi-layered storage, divided as dry and fresh in order to have proper temperature control for specific item. Censors will be placed in each cabinet and
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human also have to key in the quantity received in the system as well.
When order is placed, which can be seen from the monitor in central system area, staff will pack into boxes on the goods-out working table and also key in the item into the system as well. Censors and human manual key-in quantities will cross-check each other. Finally boxes will be transported through the exit lane.
6.8. Hygiene Control
Since our business is a food-related one, hygiene in all process plays a very important role. In order to keep it fresh and let customers feel like they receive directly from the farm, we will not wash the products by ourselves. However, we strongly recommend them to wash by themselves not because of possible contamination of chemicals, of which we are free from, but this is a normal hygienic practice. Moreover, regular inventory cleaning is a must. Proper inspection will be conducted on regular basis. Inventory for particular products might be needed to have temperature control storage. Also, our staff should wear hand-groves when boxing.
6.9. Customer Relationship
As mentioned above, we have tracking for all the processes, beginning when customers place order in their dashboard, boxing until it is delivered to their doorstep. We would like to ensure that customers get the highest satisfaction as much as possible. In our website, we encourage customers to give us feedback. Also, we will keep information updated for them through our communication channels e.g. blogs, social media etc.
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