Improving Control for Business Process Management in Foodie House - Case Study Example

Improve Foodie House works on a premise of Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value that needs succinct consideration in light of the fourth phase of the Six Sigma methodology (Improve). However, such succinctness with regard to the fourth phase must be based on the three different kinds of food service Foodie House is offering. Beginning with the take away services, it has been noted that the manager takes the order and input it into ordering system. With this mechanism, there have been complaints where customers are referred to other departments where in case there have a query they are forced to explain their issues over and over depending on the number of referrals made. Based on these complaints, Bardi (2011) suggests that there should be clear support and quick decision making channels. Based on the case study, this will be achieved in two ways; organizing weekly meeting where managers and stakeholders review customer ordering schedules, activities, rate of waiting and delivery of foods ordered. Secondly Foodie House should hire trained personal on key issues so that when the customer calls s/he is not referred to what Foodie House refers to senior officer where they have to re-narrate their problems over and over again. The diagram below has been proposed in order to improve the ‘Take Away’ system of the project. Figure 1: Dealing with Take Away Ordering at Foodie House Looking at the figure above vis-à-vis challenges customers have raised with regard to the hotel’s Take Away system, there are three critical issues that should be aligned/improved and such must be in accordance with the figure above (Kivela and Kagi, 2008). Firstly, efficiency is needed at the point where “manager packs up all the food and take it out from the kitchen and wait for the customer to come and pick.” Basically, here is where list item two (2) in the figure above is applied. There is need for efficiency where the extent to which effort, time or cost should be given consideration so as to complete the ordering and picking of foods with a minimum amount of waste, time and unnecessary effort(s). The point is the manager should not wait for the customer but build customer-manager-hotel platform where the customer is signaled or notified about the status of their order. Even if the hotel has automated data collection, sending and analysis as explained in the case, it is still essential to validate data/orders prior to sending them to the chef/kitchen and such will also go a long way in minimizing the cases where managers handle cash when customers pay by cash. Secondly, there is need to re-assess kitchen, waiter and ordering operators with methods of area performance, isolate problems that have been received from customers, standardize the services and create new methods to improve sectors aforementioned. For instance, Foodie House has ineffective online ordering system and basically there is where the biggest challenge is emanating. First, is to begin with order from the official website and such made via ‘ORDER ONLINE VIE EAT NOW.’ From here, the whole system becomes inefficient and lacks alignment. That is, the manager take the online order, the same manager sends the order to the kitchen through a list, the same person gives the customer a notification that the order has been received and relevant department (chef in the kitchen) is working on it, it is the same manager who receives the pay, and finally it is the same person packing the order for the customer. According to Fitzpatrick and Rogers (2003) this process calls for diversification, division of labour and specilisation so that individuals are assigned to work in areas where they are well trained at. For instance, Kumar, Phillips and Rupp (2009) suggest that at such stage, there is need for procurement officers who take orders from the customers and at the same time ensures that the kitchen store is well stocked. Secondly, there is need for well-trained IT experts who receive the order from the managers and send relevant notifications and signals to the customers depending on the list generated from ordering desk. The diagram below has been developed to show the current challenges in the organization and where major challenges are and two avert them; Figure 2: Current State Process Map for Online Ordering at Foodie House Relating the figure above with the case of Foodie House, there are delays at order assignment because the manager as the only person has to facilitate one order to other departments. Lastly, Foodie House need to hire more dispatch team who will be responsible for packing and seeing off customers after their foods have been received from the kitchen. In that connectedness, it has been established that there are standby drivers waiting to take orders to customers’ residence but it is clear that the ordering system only takes customers’ contact and such has not established mechanism of obtaining and saving physical addresses of these customers in their databases. Therefore Fitzpatrick and Rogers (2003) suggest it is necessary to do benchmarking at this particular point of DMAIC so that comparison against other sites and processes can be made. Control Foodie House should note that DMAIC’s fifth model is the road map for improving and maintaining the efficiency of services provided to customers. Hu et al. (2008) note that control phase in the most tricky part that requires due consideration by managers. Secondly, control phase must be based on the improvement recommendations that have been given in the previous section. The first step that will be done to Foodie House is standardization. Standardization allows aligned the process of ordering, preparing meals and delivery of food run as smooth as possible. Before analyzing how Foodie House will accomplish this control process, it is essential to note that such will be accomplished once dine in, take away, online order and delivery reaches the stage where the inputs or rather elements the management team put into the system, are aligned, time and time again. Taking online order and delivery as an aspect of standardization, the management will have to devise a feature of sorts when handling the ‘delivery driver take the food and deliver to the customer and manager double checks the order and tell the customer the total amount’ that ensures that the steps are executed a standard and acceptable way so that negative calls and complaints raised by customers are minimized. Control with regard to standardization as a process when dealing with delivery and taking orders will should be based on the figure three (3) below. Standardization as a Control phase in Foodie House Secondly, quality control is another element in the phase that Foodie House will require with regard to maintaining the functionality of the project. Looking at the functionality of the project it is apparent that quality of services and products need to be controlled. To underscore this statement, it is realized in the improve phase that the ordering system create a list of the order and sends it to the printer in the kitchen but there is no clear strategy on prioritization in the sense that there could be customers looking for quicker orders and surpass certain qualities. Integrating this with quality control as highlighted, managers have to spot trouble areas such as delays in the kitchen after an order has been placed and fixed them for continuous sustainability of the project. Again, there has been a complaint on clients who cannot find respondents who quickly understand what they want for that matter their calls being referred. Quality control therefore requires that Foodie House keep improvement process on track so that these complaints do not turn into larger problems. Thirdly, another control method in this phase is the regulation methodologies and alternatives that are not offered by manager at the moment. Improve phase as anaysed above suggested a change to the delivery and ordering process as implemented by the manager. However, to control the proposed improvements, there is a need to develop a way of regulating the workflow or develop an alternative so that streamlined flows of activities are not affected by the introduction of new improvements. Figure four (4) below has been proposed to suggest a protocol of controlling the newly introduced improvements in the previous DMAIC phase (Improve). Proper methodology of responding to defects and negative comments from returning to placing customers is another aspect of control that should be given due consideration. It is apparent that the process of ordering to delivery of the food to customers has defects and quality related challenges. Even if the objective of Six Sigma has been followed to reduce these challenges and defects as close as to nil as possible, more defects are likely to re-occur in the weakest links of ordering to delivery of foods. When prompt follow up is made to defects as they emerge management team at Foodie House will carefully monitor the weakest links beforehand. Without well-established control over viewing the processes in Foodie House, it will not be easy to spot the defects, ineffectiveness and poor quality service deliveries as spotted in Improve phase. References Bardi, J. (2011). Hotel Front Office Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Fitzpatrick, B., & Rogers, R. (2003). Six sigma™ explained. Hospitality Upgrade, 128-130. Hu, G., Wang, L., Fetch, S., & Bidanda, B. (2008). A multi-objective model for project portfolio selection to implement lean and six sigma concepts. International Journal of Production Research, 46(23), 6611-6625. doi:10.1080/00207540802230363. Kivela, J., & Kagi, J. (2008). Applying six sigma in foodservice organizations. Tourism (13327461), 56(4), 319-337. Kumar, S., Phillips, A., & Rupp, J. (2009). Using six sigma DMAIC to design a high-quality summer lodge operation. Journal of Retail & Leisure Property, 8(3), 173-191. doi:10.1057/rlp.2009.8 Read More