Jose's authentic Mexican restaurant

Synopsis of Case:

Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant is a small, 58-seat restaurant that offers a reasonably broad range of Mexican food and prepared and presented in a traditional Mexican style. It is located in New England in a grown-up business district on the edge of a large metropolitan area. The restaurants interior decoration promotes the Mexican style theme. The atmosphere of Jose’s allows for people to have a real taste for Mexican food and Mexican background music. The set of choices consists of twenty three main entrees which are assembled from eight basic stocks and variety of other ingredients. The restaurant is restricted in seating and free off-street parking. The Mexican tasty foods and Mexican music make up for the wait. The customer is usually immediate except for Friday and Saturday nights when waits of as long as 45 minutes can be encountered because space inside for waiting is very limited and there is no separate waiting area. Another problem is the restaurant does not take advance booking.

The usually amount of time needed to complete a meal once it has been ordered is twelve minutes. A good portion of this time is for final cooking. According to customer surveys during rush time on Friday and Saturday nights, the most of customer were satisfied with the overall dinning experience. Only sixteen customers said the dinning experience was not worth the money and other side sixty seven customers said it was worth the cost. According to customer surveys most of customer not happy on the delivery time of their food on the table.

Major Issues Discussed:

This report concerns the operational aspect of Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant which is currently operated in the UK market. Currently they are operated their restaurant business with poor quality.

This report covers the relevant issues and factors including the food process and associated supply chain and customer satisfactory issues. It also looks at the location of the restaurant, staffing and also the quality issues that will give the restaurant the competitive advantage.

This report highlights a number of strategically focused issues include:

Time maintains:

Jose’s Authentic Mexican restaurant management is facing difficulties with food service. And another problem is waiting long time. Even though the Jose’s authentic Mexican restaurant do not have waiting area after that Purchasers they do not mind to wait for seat also they are agree to wait roughly 45 minutes. In this restaurant case another remarkable problem is food preparation time taking longer. In this situation make a complete meal taking long time to serve to customer. Whether regular processing time is 12 minutes, now it is taking 20 minutes. Due to delay from the kitchen, customer service is hampered. Though consumers does not tell anything but they can be bit unhappy. And result is recently declining tips.

Quality Issues:

Quality is the term used by the customer to describe their general satisfaction with a service or product. Customers, internal or external, are satisfied when their expectations regarding a service or product have been met or exceeded. (Krajewski et al, 2010, p.198)

The Quality Management is a philosophy that stresses three principles for achieving high levels of process performance and quality: customer satisfaction, employee involvement and continuous improvement in performance.(Krajewski et al, 2010, p.198)

Quality management can be considered to have three main components: quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only once obtaining quality, but also the means to achieve it for consistently. Quality management therefore uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality. To maintain the standard it mainly focuses on the quality of the management and the focal point is customer satisfaction. Here the customers are the people and restaurant needs to make them satisfied by finding out the problems and solving them. Finding out problems can be carried out by asking customers to fill out forms or marking multiple choice questions or by asking them for their opinion. Once the problem can be find out then the next thing is to know how this is happening and solve the problem and continuously improve them by improving standard of the service of the stuff by team building.

The quality of food is very improtant issues for a success restaursnt business. Jose’s has problem about the quality of food the chef gets from the external suppliers. If the food is not good and fresh then the total taste of the food will not be what the costomer wants. The cook at Jose’s is stressed out and not happy with the quality of food that has been getting from the external supplier. The food in the Jose’s restaurant should be better quality and fresh. Prepared the good food to meet customer needs and delivered to customers on time to the table. One of the rules of manager should be check the quality food. Food hygiene and spotlessness is another essential characteristic of quality in the restaurant. We could use Six Sigma Improvement Model for improve the quality of food in Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant on busy time. We can use it only for Friday and Saturday nights. Six Sigma which relies heavily on the principles of total quality management, is a comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining, and maximizing business success by minimizing defects and variability in processes. It is driven by a close understanding of customer needs and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business processes. Process variability causes customer dissatisfaction. Six Sigma is a rigorous approach to align processes with the restaurant target performance measures with low variability. The Six Sigma Improvement Model has five steps procedure that leads to improvements in process performance. The following steps comprise the model:

1. Define – Determine the characteristics of the process’s output that are critical to Joes’s customer satisfaction and identify any problem between the customer and the process capabilities.
2. Measure – Quantify the work the process does that affects the problem.
3. Analyze – Use the data on measures to perform process analysis and determine where improvements are necessary or not.
4. Improve – Redesign existing methods to implement the changes.
5. Control – Monitor the process to make sure that high standard levels are maintained.

Supply chain:

The concept of supply chain reinforces the link between processes and performance, which includes a restaurant’s internal processes as well as those of its external customers and suppliers. It also focuses attention on the two main types of processes in the supply chain, namely core processes and support processes.

Core processes:

A core process is a set of activities that delivers value to external customer. Managers of these processes and their employees interact with external customers and build relationships with them, develop new services and products, interact with external suppliers and produce the service or product for external customers.

1. Supplier relationship process:

2. It is most important to make a good relationship between employee and supplier. Jose’s restaurant has problem about the quality of food the chef receives from the suppliers.. The cook at Jose’s is stressed out and not happy with the quality of food that has been getting from the external supplier. Good quality food come form good suppliers. If the food is not good then the total flavour of the meal will not be what the external customer needs. The result of these entire problems in Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant will lose business. Employees in the supplier relationship process select the suppliers of services, materials and information and facilitate the timely and efficient flow of these items into the Jose’s restaurant. Working effectively with suppliers can add significant value to the services or products of the restaurant. For example: – negotiating for better quality food, scheduling on time deliveries and gaining ideas and insights from critical suppliers etc.

3. Order fulfilment process:

4. The order fulfilment process includes the activities required to produce and deliver the service or product to the external customer. The customer order fulfilment is also important for a success restaurant business. Time maintains is big deal at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant. The customers are not happy because the cook takes more time for meals on the dinning table. The external customer will be happy if the cook hit their twelve minutes target.

5. Customer relationship process:

6. Customer relationship process sometimes referred to as customer relationship management. Employees involved in the customer relationship process identify, attract, and build relationships with external customers and facilitates the placement of orders by customers. Jose’s manager could be walk through the restaurant and talk to the customer in order to listen feedback. Also more surveys could be help for getting better quality to assess the condition at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant.

Capacity:

The Jose’s Authentic Mexican restaurant’ interior decoration promotes the Mexican theme with 58 seats. The wall appear to be made of adobe and are draped with serapes, the furniture is Spanish- Mexican style, and flamenco guitar and mariachi alternate as background music without waiting area. This restaurant has very good demand but shortage of capacity they losing more sales. They have another problem with parking but still their demand is high. Reservation problem is showing that capacity is main problem and waiting area also. Due to shortage of capacity customer have their drinks on stand on bar some are outside especially in Friday and Saturday.

Customer Satisfaction:

Quality has multiple dimensions in the mind of customer, which cut across the nine competitive priorities. Another way customers define quality is through value, or how well the product serves its intended purpose at a price customers are willing to pay. The product development process plays a role here, as do the restaurant’s competitive priorities relating to top quality versus low cost operations. When the good quality food coming to Jose’s then the preparation time for the food will be reduce and the cook should be able to hit the twelve minute target. The customer will be more satisfy and happy if Jose’s is able to manage to the twelve minutes preparation time for the food instead of twenty minutes. Customer satisfaction is another key of success business.

Questions and Answers

Question 1: How should quality be defined at this restaurant?

The quality is the important and big issue in the restaurant business. Restaurant’s quality should consist of making customers feel happy. Make sure the restaurant meet the customer standards. The customers should be reception greeted by cheerful faces and seated in a friendly manner. The environment in a good restaurant is very important of the dinning knowledge. Making confident that the restaurants interior decoration promotes the Mexican style theme. The environment allows for people to get an actual taste for Mexican meal and Mexican background music. The staffs and administration in the good restaurant should be well behave and more friendly so that the customer will be happy and good dinning experience. Also it is very important to make a good relationship with the valuable customers. The food in the restaurant should be better condition and fresh. Prepared the good food to meet customer needs and delivered to customers on time to the table. Food hygiene and spotlessness is another essential characteristic of quality in the restaurant.

Question 2: What are the restaurant’s costs of poor quality?

The key of a successful restaurant business is always keep high standard environment and serve fresh good quality foods. Also make happy and satisfied customer that will want to come back and will tell others of their good dinning experience. Time maintains is very important in a good successful business. Customer will not come back if the preparation time and the release time for the meals do not improve at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant. Restaurant will be lost their customers if the stay time to be seated does not reduce. Another important is the quality of food and customers always want fresh and tasty food. If the food is not good then the total flavour of the meal will not be what the external customer needs. The result of these entire problems in Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant will lose business. When the customers are not happy with the food and management then the whole restaurant suffers and possibly having to shut down. Karetski and other waiters do not get their tips because the poor quality of food. The customer will not give tips well if they have a bad dinning experience and they will not tell others. So the restaurant will be lose their customer and business will be down.

Question 3: Use some of the tools for improving quality to assess the situation at Jose’s.

There are lots of roads that Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant could be improve their overall Jose’s dinning experience for their valuable customers. Some of the equipment for recovering quality to assess the situation at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant below:

1. The Quality of Food
2. The Restaurant’s Seating Capacity
3. Take- Way System
4. The Preparation time Reduce

The Quality of Food:

The quality of food is the biggest problem at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant. The quality of food is very important for the cook at Jose’s. He is not happy and stressful for the food supplier. The manager at Jose’s needs to try to improve the quality of their food and also needs to contact the supplier according to this problem. The manager at Jose’s could have someone that check the food which has been coming in from the supplier and make sure they are getting fresh and the best quality possible. If the cook and the manager find out that the quality of the food continues to coming in at Jose’s in poor situation then Jose’s would be need to get a new supplier who can supply the best quality and fresh food. More quality food is more success in their restaurant business.

The Restaurant’s Seating Capacity:

Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant is a small 58-seat restaurant. The customer wait time will be improve and reduce if Jose’s could providing more seating. One of the better ideas for improving the restaurant is to develop on its current size and add a relaxing waiting area so that the customer does not have to wait outside. If Jose’s continues to be a success and grow in a larger restaurant then the customer waiting line will be slowly generate big. So Jose’s would need to be hiring extra employee like cook and waiters that the customer waiting time will be improve and reduce.

Take- Way System:

Take -Way system is the external customers can order their food and pick up the order at the restaurant. So Jose’s could be starting offering take -way to the customer that the customer still get taste Jose’s Mexican food without waiting on the queue long time and without the whole dinning experience. Customer relationship is important in a successful business. Jose’s manager could be walk through the restaurant and talk to the customer in order to listen feedback. Also more surveys could be help for recovering better quality to consider the condition at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant.

The Preparation time Reduce:

Time maintains is big deal at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant. The customers are not happy because the cook takes more time for meals on the dinning table. The cook takes more time for meal because the poor quality of food. When the good quality food coming to Jose’s then the preparation time for the food will be reduce and the cook should be able to hit the twelve minute target. The customer will be more satisfy and happy if Jose’s is able to manage to the twelve minutes preparation time for the food instead of twenty minutes.

If Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant able to make these changes then the customer will be happier and leave better tips for waiters. Karetski and other waiters also will be happier for these changes. When the customer will be enjoy the overall Jose’s dinning experience and tell others then Jose’s will be more success restaurant business in New England. More customers will come in and get taste of the Mexican food.