Leaning an Operational Delivery Process: Artisanal Burger Company - Research Paper Example

Leaning an operational delivery process: Artisanal Burger Company (ABC) Introduction Inventory and asset management is one of the most critical components of well-managed organisations. Controlling the costs of inventories and assets should be under focus of any organisation that intends to succeed. Effective inventory control is started before purchasing the products. Effective menu planning and recipe development of a restaurant should be the first step in restaurant’s inventory management. Procuring of products, forecasting, and ordering are critical for ensuring that the right foods and in accurate amounts are obtained in time for consumption. Inventory management practices are essential aspects of any organisation. Many organisations have changed from the traditional settings to production and inventory management. The role of inventory management is to ensure faster inventory turnover. Artisanal Burger Company (ABC) Restaurant is a joint that is famous for its burgers, homemade bread and delicious omelets. The restaurant is located at 1436 Pleasant Valley Road, Manchester, CT 06042 (www.yelp.com). According to the reviews by customers, the services have not been ideal for maximising profits and reduction of waste. The management needs to rethink and introduce new techniques of managing assets and inventories. An investigation of processes in this restaurant indicates that there is need to introduce Lean thinking in ABC Restaurant. Improvements can bring significant savings for the restaurant owners, which would, in turn, be passed on to the customers, both quantitatively and qualitatively. One customer says, “the burgers are hit and miss”…..ABC lacks consistency (www.yelp.com). Problems Identified One of the problems identified was that it takes too much time to deliver food to the table. Secondly, there is no accuracy of orders. Finally, the time it takes a customer to pay the bill is too long. Problems were identified in the dining area, kitchen area, and billing area. The issues that were identified are summarised in Table 1. Dining Area Kitchen Area Billing Area Long food delivery times Wide unused space Cashier being unfamiliar with pricing of some products Waiter being unacquainted with menu Unnecessary equipments in the kitchen Long queues in the billing area There is no standardised work pattern of taking and delivery of orders Kitchen equipments are not organised The average billing time is three minutes Server discontinuity Sometimes, supplies are found sitting on the floor and on top of the appliances Sometimes, food ordered fails to match with the food delivered Unsorted inventory Delay in wiping and cleaning of tables Lack of visual indication of diminishing inventories No adequate supplies on the tables Lack of labeling system Lack of consistency in taste ABC’s delivery process does not match with its performance objectives. Markovic, Raspor and Segaric (2010, p. 181) state that a restaurant business is a demanding business, and it, therefore, stresses on the provision of high-level customer service and continuous quality improvement. There is constant change of peoples’ lifestyles. Thus, customers desire new flavours, comfortable ambience and pleasant memories. Restaurants that provide high-quality service gain stronger competitive advantage in the current dynamic marketplace. The issues outlined in Table 1 indicate the quality of ABC’s operational delivery process. The duration taken between the time a customer orders food to the time food is delivered to the table is 25 to 45 minutes depending on the types of food a customer orders. One customer complains that when he visited the place with his friends “the waiter did not write down their order and she ended up bringing the wrong order” (www.yelp.com). Due to lack of allocation of servers to specific tables, some tables are unclean at the time the food is delivered. Cleaning items such as napkins are not adequate. ABC service qualities do not satisfy the requirement of satisfaction which is considered to be the service quality (Kim et al. 2009, p. 15). According to Wu and Liang (2009, p. 591), there are three main elements: environmental elements (design, music, and lighting), employees (professional skills, reliability) and customers (interaction with other customers) that determine service encounter in restaurant settings. General Objectives The general objective is to establish the best practices of inventory and asset management in restaurants while considering the case of ABC Restaurant. Specific Objectives i. To establish the techniques of asset and inventory management used in ABC Restaurant ii. To examine the relationship between asset and inventory management and performance of ABC Restaurant iii. To establish the challenges faced by ABC Restaurant in the management of assets and inventories. Lean Approach The implementation of Lean tools at ABC Restaurant can help in minimising costs and develop a culture of sustainability through Lean. By implementing the Lean approach in the restaurant, ABC Restaurant can reduce customer wait for food delivery, improve the accuracy of orders, and reduce the time of paying the bills. Lean management in the restaurant service industry can be an effective way of managing of assets and inventories. Lean approach is used to eliminate wastes such as unorganised work area, movement of servers, and long billing queues. Lean approach uses lean tools such as hoshin kanri, 5S, kanban charts, and spaghetti charts to improve operations in a restaurant. According to Cudney, Furterer and Dietrich (2010, p. 185), Lean principles were first implemented in the food service industry in 1970s. These principles have been found to contribute to the reduction of customer wait times and increase in profits. These benefits lead to the central idea of Lean, that is, maximising production with the bare minimum resources. Lean approach provides restaurants and hotels with the best ways of managing assets and inventories. Lean thinking allows the identification and elimination of waste (Cudney, Furterer and Dietrich 2010, p. 185). Lean Thinking at ABC Restaurant Various Lean tools have been suggested in this paper to help ABC Restaurant improve its operational delivery process. These tools are 5S (Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardise, and Sustain), hoshin kanri, kanban charts, and spaghetti charts. 5S can help improve the delivery time of food orders and order accuracy. Sort involves organising items in the refrigerators. The items in refrigerators that are unorganised under the current ABC process will be organised in different sections as per their use and their expiration dates. Inconsistencies in the tastes of food may be attributed to the use of expired items in preparation of customers’ orders. Labelling should be done to help in sorting of these items. The frequently used items can be moved to the kitchen. “Straighten” can be used to provide a clear and organised workspace to eliminate waste in movement and time. Labels can be used to designate the areas clearly. Time wasted searching for desired items will be reduced. “Shine” creates a clean workplace. Here, staff follow and ensure that everything is in the correct place in order to develop a smooth flow of work all through the day (Cudney, Furterer and Dietrich 2010, p. 185). “Standardise” ensures that staff benefits from a displayed standardised ingredients list for certain menu items instead of having to go looking for them. Under “sustain”, the above 4S are sustained, and a culture is developed. Kanban System Kanban system is useful in inventory management (Liker and Hoseus 2008, p. 148). Under this system, kanban cards are developed and assigned a proper place. These cards contain information about the required items, required quantities, and dates when the supply ends. Spaghetti Diagrams/Standard Work As mentioned earlier in this paper, ABC Restaurant is famous for homemade bread, which is purchased by many customers. Standard work is one of the Lean tools that offer a guideline on how a process should be performed. It helps the organisation to break tasks into smaller well-defined steps. Conclusion An earlier research indicated that customer satisfaction in highly Andaleeb and Conway’s (2006, p. 9) influenced by the employees’ responsiveness, food quality, and price. According to findings of another research study there are five restaurant dimensions (food quality, service quality, price and value, atmosphere and expediency) that have considerable effect on overall customer satisfaction (Kim et al. 2009, p. 15). Another study reported that customer satisfaction is positively or negatively affected by the restaurant employees (Wu and Liang 2009, p. 591). Other findings indicated that customer contentment is significantly influenced by food quality (food safety, taste, food presentation, menu variety), service dependability, environmental sanitation, interior design, and neat and well dressed employees (Liu and Jang 2009, p. 346). Lean approach will help ABC Restaurant to eliminate the wastes of lean which are outlined as waste of motion, waste of overproduction and transportation, waste of waiting, waste of underutilized people, waste of defects, waste of inventory and overprocessing (Sarkar 2010, p. 16). Lean intervenes in a process with the main objective of removing the time from the process. The application of Lean in ABC Restaurant is the same as for the other service businesses, removing all forms of waste in the production process, ensuring good quality, and reduction of lead-time through the transformation processes. In ABC, customers are kept waiting for a duration of up to 40 minutes. Under 5S, items and activities will be organised in such a way as to help provide customer with their orders in 15 minutes or less. This paper suggests Hoshin Kanri as a tool for policy deployment in ABC. Hoshin Kanri will help ABC Restaurant by linking its major objectives with specific support plans that have been suggested above throughout the organisation. Hashin Kanri will help ABC to understand the big picture. Lean as a philosophy is about going beyond and being the best in every process. Hoshin Kanri stresses on integration of Lean throughout the organisation. The foundation of Lean organisation is people. People will be the key agents of change in ABC Restaurant. ABC staff is the most important aspect of creating and sustaining a Lean initiative and culture. References Andaleeb, S. and Conway C. 2006. Customer satisfaction in the restaurant industry: an examination of the transaction-specific model. Journal of Services Marketing, 20 (1), pp. 3-11. YELP. 2015. Artisanal Burger Company. Available http://www.yelp.com/biz/artisanal-burger-company-manchester Cudney, E., Furterer, S. and Dietrich, D. 2013. Lean Systems: Applications and Case Studies in Manufacturing, Service, and Healthcare. Florida:CRC Press. Kim, W. G. K., Ng, C. Y. N. and Kim, Y. 2009. Influence of institutional DINESERV on customer satisfaction, return intention and word-of-mouth. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28, 10-17. Liu, Y. and Jang. S. 2009. Perceptions of Chinese restaurants in the U. S.: What affects customer satisfaction and behavioral intention? International Journal of Hospitality Management,28, pp. 338-348. Liker, J. and Hoseus, M. 2008. Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way. New York: McGraw-Hill. Markovic, S., Raspor, S. and Segaric, K. 2010. Does restaurant performance meet customers’ expectations? An assessment of restaurant service quality using a modified dineserv approach. Tourism and Hospitality Management, 16(2): pp. 181-195. Sarkar, D. 2008. Lean for Service Organizations and Offices: A Holistic Approach for Achieving Operational Excellence and Improvements.Wisconsin: ASQ Quality Press. Wu, C. and Liang, R. 2009. Effect of experiential value on customer satisfaction with service encounters in luxury-hotels restaurants. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28, pp. 586-593. Read More