SAS Gets Things Cooking at Burger King

Burger King Corporation strives to provide its customers with quality and convenience. With 91 percent of BURGER KING® restaurants owned and operated by independent franchises and more than 11,220 locations worldwide, a key component in achieving this is a clear vision of product movement through the supply chain.

Using SAS, Burger King Corporation not only achieved visibility of product movement through the supply chain, but also attained a greater understanding of the relationship between product usage and optimal operating levels. Using SAS analytics Burger King Corporation will continue to drive improvements in product quality and restaurant profitability.

Higher customer satisfaction, more profitable operations
In the first stage of the project, Burger King Corporation implemented SAS to collect distributor transactions from every restaurant in the U.S. and Canada going back several years. This data was collected at line item detail level which included invoices for each shipment and each distributor going to each restaurant every calendar day. This data was translated into a uniform, accessible supply chain database. Burger King Corporation then developed systems to capture this data on a regular, scheduled basis. SAS analytics were used to identify best practices and operational and procurement opportunities.

"There are various ratios that can be used to help run a more efficient operation and deliver a more consistent experience to the customer. A ratio might be food to oil or salt to fry," says Larissa Siegel, director of operations field information at Burger King Corporation. "SAS is helping us develop our operations analytics and determine optimal performance measures. Burger King Corporation can now help the restaurants develop standards for operation ratios which in turn can lead to higher customer satisfaction and more profitable operations. We’re confident that we’ll be able to achieve substantial improvements in operations and supply chain costs."

Looking ahead
Burger King Corporation has big plans to sustain its momentum in improving customer experience and its franchise partners' profitability using SAS analytics.

"We now have access to data and analytics that we didn’t have before. Now we have established a foundation, there are virtually unlimited possibilities," adds Siegel.