Case interview examples › Operations
Operations case interviews
A client needs to make, move or serve more for less: cut cost, fix a bottleneck or change how its people are organised.
How an operations case runs
Operations cases start from a process: a factory, a call centre, a restaurant kitchen, a delivery network. The interviewer wants you to map how work flows through it, find where capacity, cost or quality breaks down, and size the gain from fixing it.
They are heavy on numbers. Expect utilisation, throughput and cost-per-unit calculations, and a judgement about trade-offs: cheaper but slower, more capacity but more capital, offshore savings against longer lead times. Organisation cases sit here too: who does what, and how the structure should change.
A structure to start from
Where is the operation falling short?
- The process
- Map the steps
- Find the bottleneck
- Capacity
- Utilisation of people and machines
- Throughput against demand
- Cost
- Labour, materials and overhead per unit
- Make or buy, onshore or offshore
- People and organisation
- Structure and spans of control
- Skills and incentives
Draw the process before the tree. Once the steps are on the page, the bottleneck is usually visible, and the tree becomes a list of ways to relieve it. Keep service and quality in view: a cut that the client’s customers notice is not a saving.
The maths it tests
- Capacity = units per hour × hours open × utilisation
- The slowest step sets the capacity of the whole line.
- Cost per unit = total cost ÷ units
- Split fixed and variable costs: fixed cost per unit falls as volume rises.
- Payback on equipment = cost ÷ annual saving
- The usual test for an automation or capacity investment.
- Labour cost = people × hours × rate
- Handling time and volume give the people needed in service operations.
Where candidates lose marks
- Cutting cost without checking what it does to quality or service.
- Speeding up a step that is not the bottleneck, which adds nothing to output.
- Forgetting one-off costs: redundancy, retraining, new equipment, transition.
- Ending without a plan for how the change happens and in what order.
Operations cases to practise
- Meridian Courier Network Intermediate Meridian Courier Network ("Meridian") is a regional parcel carrier facing cost inflation and flat volumes.
- Greenfield Waste Solutions Intermediate Greenfield, a fast-growing city of 15 million, must decide what to do next as its waste-management infrastructure can no longer keep up.
- Blue Heron Media Group Intermediate Blue Heron Media Group, a nine-newspaper chain newly acquired by a private equity firm, must reorganize its editorial operation before the owner’s exit window closes.
- Wrenfield Apparel Intermediate Wrenfield Apparel is a US direct-to-consumer apparel brand facing a new Textile Stewardship Act that charges a per-garment fee from FY2027, with a 40% "eco-modulation" discount for brands that run certified take-back and hit a recycled-fiber threshold.
- Bella's Burger Barn Advanced Bella's Burger Barn, a fast-food restaurant chain, is taking in comparatively low revenue — diagnose why and decide what would raise it.
- Vertex Connect Advanced Vertex Connect must cut its call centre costs through operational improvements — a demanding exercise in judgement, insight and numeracy.
- Azzurra Apparel Advanced Azzurra Apparel, an Italian apparel manufacturer, is debating whether to offshore production — and which parts of it — to low-cost countries.
- Obsidian Precision Advanced Obsidian Precision, a precision investment-caster of superalloy components for power-generation turbines, has landed a large new customer its stretched Salem, Ohio plant can barely serve — how does it take the contract on?
Other case types
Every case in the library