Read the following scenario and answer the questions that follow.

Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, many persons have found opportunities to start and grow business ventures. With food being an essential commodity, many persons found this to be a lucrative sector including your best friend who just launched his/her business. Knowing that you excelled in your Quality Management module, your friend asks you to help him/her to get ahead of the competition. Your first step was to gather information about the operation and the following describes what you found.

Your friend graduated from the culinary institute. There are three other persons employed in the establishment. One of these employees holds a degree in Marketing and is a good photographer. Your friend, in an effort to capitalize on a large market, invested in a lot of different specialized equipment which are all crammed in one space and not all utilized. Also, to get a good price, perishable raw materials are ordered in bulk but a lot is discarded due to spoilage. Equipment and raw materials are stored in a separate room from the processing space. Processes and employee roles are well-defined but results in a lot of idle time waiting for one persons tasks to get completed. At the end of each day, there are leftover products which are shared among employees and with members of the community.

Questions:

a) Conduct a SWOT Analysis for this case.

b) How could the 5S Strategy be used to improve business operations in this scenario?