Executive Summary:
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 dining 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.
Question 1
How quality should is defined at this restaurant?
ANSWER: 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.
Quality at Joses restaurant should be defined by service, value, reliability of the experience and overall customers’ satisfaction. The quality of a product is defined as whether it fulfills its stated specifications. Customer satisfaction should be at the top priority for the restaurant. Customer satisfaction is the measurement of a product or service that meets or exceeds customer’s expectations. Therefore, the restaurant should focus on its customers’ needs and requirements, and strive to exceed their expectations. The factors that affect the quality of the service are conformance to specification, value, fitness for use, support and even psychological standard impression. Food should be delivered and served as to be what is promised on the menu. Also, the food should be cooked and prepared properly, to be fresh, clean, and to have exactly the ingredients and flavors that are ordered. Service staff should be neatly dressed and greet customers with a smile; personnel should be experienced and trained to accommodate the customer. Atmosphere is another important area of quality. At Jose’s, keeping with the Mexican themed decor creates the atmosphere for the Mexican prepared dishes. The overall establishment should maintain a level of cleanliness. Waiting areas for customers should be clean and comfortable during the peak times when a waiting to be seated is necessary. The service and meals should be dependable and consistent.
The quality of food is very important issues for a success restaurant 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 customer 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 Joses 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.
Question 2
What are the restaurant’s costs of poor quality?
ANSWER: 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 dining 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 flavor 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 dining experience and they will not tell others. So the restaurant will be lose their customer and business will be down. As we know that cost of poor qualities are
External Failure Costs
These are costs associated with defects found after the product or service has been delivered to the customer. In other words, the customer discovered the defect. So, these costs might include: customer service contacts, processing customer service complaints, customer returns, warranty claims, product recalls and others.
Internal Failure Costs
These are costs associated with defects of product or service found before the product or service was delivered to the customer. These types of costs include scrap, rework, inventory adjustments (or adjustments of adjustments) and others.
Inspection (Appraisal) Costs
These costs include audits, checks, testing, and other items. In general, these costs include activities to double-check conformance to customer standards.
Prevention Costs
Costs incurred in the prevention of product or service failure are described as Prevention Costs. Examples include: dedicated quality improvement teams, quality education and training, process reviews, etc.
Question 3
Use some of the tools for improving quality to assess the situation at Jose’s.
ANSWER: There are lots of roads that Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant could be improved their overall Jose’s dining experience for their valuable customers. Some of the equipment for recovering quality to assess the situation at Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant below:
- The Quality of Food
- The Restaurant’s Seating Capacity
- Take- Way System
- Reducing the Preparation time
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 dining 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.
Reducing the Preparation time:
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 dining 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 dining 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.
Conclusion
After much researching, analyzing and receiving information from sources therefore we concludes that the managers handle the service system, the wait-staff do their job, have the cook do his work and on peak days acquire an extra part-time cook to help with the food preparations and obtain an alternative supplier that delivers what is necessary and build a relationship with them, the best alternative to consider concerning the service issues of Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant because of its attainable nature, cost-efficiency, practicality and wisdom. It is attainable because this not a complete overhaul of the system, it is simply placing a more efficient system with maintenance and control intact. All that is needed is to hire more help and to acquire a trust-worthy and reliable supplier. This process is easy enough to accomplish in a short period of time .It is practical since we use solutions that have been proven by time, like a management system and placing the right people in the right jobs. We also hire extra help on peak days only to reduce stress from the main cook who is responsible for the taste and the main attraction of the restaurant. We know this is practical simply by looking at what other successful businesses have been doing when the time comes that they need extra help. Therefore, the restaurant should focus on its customers’ needs and requirements, and strive to exceed their expectations.
