IntroductionKudler Fine Foods is featured in the University of Phoenix rEsource MBA 502 (2008) virtual organization portal. Kudler Fine Foods is a specialty food store located in the San Diego metropolitan area. It is a one-stop grocery store with the best selection of the best foods and wines at reasonable prices. The store offers a wide range of products such as fresh baked goods, fresh produce, meat, seafood, condiments and packaged foods, and specialty dairy products. Within five years the Kudler Fine Foods company expanded into three subsidiaries (University of Phoenix, 2008). Recently, Kudler plans to start contracts with local organic growers. This document identifies Kudler's business processes that may be affected by this decision and also describes how the supply chain would be affected. He then explains the different quality control tools and performance standards that Kudler must implement to ensure the effectiveness of his processes. operations. Business Processes in Kudler A process is any part of an organization that takes inputs and converts them into outputs that are expected to have greater value to the organization than the original inputs (Chase, Jacobs, Aquilano, 2005). Understanding how processes work is essential to a company's competitiveness (Chase, Jacobs & Aquilano, 2005). The different processes that would be affected are purchasing, inventory and delivery planning. There is currently no purchasing office in Kudler. Department managers at each store determine the product requirements for their department and submit purchase orders directly to suppliers. Department managers are solely responsible for obtaining the best price and quality for their purchases. In this case, when it is imported from different local growers, it would be difficult to maintain the same quality and price. A problem from the point of view of processors and producers is the variability in the quality of organic foods (Knudson,2007). For this reason the price would also vary. Customers always expect good quality at a minimal price. Sometimes it would be difficult for the department managers to find the best price which should also match that of other Kudler stores. Since the suppliers are local growers, a made-to-order product will follow a process to keep inventory costs minimal. Due to this made-to-order manufacturing process, inventory must be taken regularly, to ensure that no product is out of stock. In the multi-period single item order release and planning problem is considered where the order delivery schedule is determined through the planned delivery times and the capacity loading decisions are separated from the order release decisions in order to plan punctual deliveries.