Jose’s Authentic Mexican is a popular 58-seat restaurant located in the business district of New England. They are known for their great range of traditional Mexican dishes and their Mexican themed interior. Ivan Karetski, a server at Jose’s, has recently noticed that his tips have been declining. Several factors beyond Karetski’s control could be contributing. There is limited free off-street parking, customers have to wait outside for up to 45 minutes to get a seat on Friday and Saturday nights and the cook has been irritable lately due to the poor quality of ingredients delivered to him. A decline in tips suggests a decline in quality. According to Operations Management, quality is generally defined as meeting or exceeding the expectations of customers. These expectations can be fulfilled based on three major components: customer satisfaction, employee involvement and continuous improvement (L. P. Ritzman et al, 2007). Quality is dependent on many factors thus the perception of quality changes depending on the people involved. At Jose’s, the external customers are the diners while the internal customers are the servers, suppliers, hosts, cooks, upper management etc. Quality to the external customer should be defined by their expectations. Some of these expectations include:
1. Ambiance. The decorations, lighting and music should be of Mexican style.
2. Location and accessibility to the restaurant. Ample parking should be available, public transportation should be nearby and the restaurant should be located in a good area.
3. Delicious food. The temperature, taste and presentation should be of high quality. Appropriate accommodation should be made for dietary concerns. Ingredients should be fresh and adhere to the Mexican cuisine.
4. Pleasant and timely service. Customers should be greeted as they enter, wait staff should work as efficiently as possible in taking orders and delivering food to the tables. If customers must wait to be seated, an appropriate location should be available for customers to wait in (or a pager system should be devised to accommodate the diner). The wait staff should be available and check on their customers periodically to address any concerns.
To the internal customers, quality is defined by the expectations of their work environment. Depending on the employee, internal customers have different expectations of their work.
To the servers (Ivan for example), quality is defined by:
1. The meals prepared by the cooks. They should be of high quality (fresh ingredients, good-tasting, good portion size), prepared in a timely manner (receive the dishes for everyone at the table at the same time) and of the right temperature and appearance. The servers are the direct link to the customer and thus their job is highly dependent on those doing the “background” work.
2. The safety, quality and layout of equipment. The equipment used by the servers should be placed in the most efficient and ergonomically sound locations. Equipment such as utensils, coffee machines, ice makers, juice dispensers etc. should be reliable and checked often for damages.
3. Relationships. A healthy and pleasant team environment should exist. Servers should be able to openly communicate their ideas to upper management, the cooks, hosts, etc. All parties need to work together effectively to deliver on time and make the customer happy.
To the cook, quality is defined by:
1. Fresh ingredients. The ingredients delivered by the supplier should be of high quality. Ingredients should also be purchased pre-prepared (chicken breasts skinned) if the option exists. Ingredients should be ordered as necessary to avoid waste and waste of space.
2. Safety, reliability and ergonomics. Cooks expect to be safe in the kitchen. All kitchen equipment should be inspected. Regulations should be followed (fire alarms, vents etc.). Proper training in WHMIS and other safety courses should be provided. The equipment used should be reliable and consistent to produce the same quality of meal each time. Where possible, the kitchen should be designed to minimize fatigue and workload (ex. install electric can openers).
3. Relationships. A healthy and pleasant team environment should exist. More specifically for cooks, the kitchen staff must be well organized to maximize efficiency and safety. Cooks should be able to influence and be involved in the purchasing of supplies/ingredients as they know their needs best.
Finally, a general expectation is the notion of continuous improvement. The restaurant should consistently monitor customer satisfaction and address concerns. In Jose’s case, the decrease in tips (observed by Ivan) is a great indication that some expectations are not being met. Declining tips translates to declining customer satisfaction. This decrease in customer satisfaction leads to a poor reputation for the restaurant which can significantly impact the potential for new customers through word-of-mouth. The large scale costs of poor quality in this restaurant are: reduced employee morale, loss of customers and a negative reputation. The smaller scale costs are time and money which can be categorized by prevention, appraisal, internal and external failure. 1. Prevention. The cook has complained that the ingredients supplied are of poor quality. Acquiring better ingredients would cost more money. Staying with the same supplier but having to re-order ingredients would cost time.
2. Appraisal. Employees could inspect every ingredient that is delivered to the restaurant but it would cost time. Upper management could also consistently monitor customer satisfaction (both internal and external) by developing comment boxes and surveys. These cost time and money, especially if you include incentives such as prizes for completing the survey.
3. Internal Failure. If a meal is delivered to the customer and they are not happy, the restaurant wastes time and money on making a new one. 4. External Failure. If the customer is unhappy, they may never come back and will tell friends. This ruins Jose’s reputation decreasing chances for potential customers.
Improving quality at Jose’s involves defining the gaps between the characteristics of customer satisfaction and those of the current business process (L. P. Ritzman et al, 2007). According to the customer survey results, there are several issues that are causing customer dissatisfaction. The following Checklist shows those defects.
Defects of Jose's Authentic Mexican Restaurant Complaint Type Negative Feedback Percentage Unhappy | A. Waiting for seats 13 15%B. Unsatisfactory waiter 10 12%C. Unreasonable serving time 25 30%D. Unenjoyable food 11 13% E. Unworthy cost 16 19% |

This summary shows the number of defects and the percentage of negative feedback received for each question. From this summary, it’s apparent that there is a gap between diners’ expectations and the restaurant's current processing capabilities. Of the 83 customers surveyed, 19% considered their dining experience unworthy of the price they paid for it.
As the gap has been determined and problems have been defined, the next step is to identify what causes the gap and analyze whether a major redesign is necessary. (L. P. Ritzman et al, 2007)

From the Pareto chart above and by calculating the percentage of each type of complaint we find that long waiting time (including waiting for seats and unreasonable serving time) accounts for 55% of the complaints of the restaurant's business. Therefore, it is essential to solve the problem of unreasonable waiting time to improve quality. By using the following cause-and -effect diagram, we can further analyze the causes of long wait times.

Cause-and-Effect Diagram of unreasonable waiting time
As shown in the cause-and-effect diagram above, the major cause of long wait times are the defects in facilities and the long preparation time of cooks (when they receive poor ingredients). People have to wait for a long time because of the limited facilities available and the procedures of preparing meals and ordering. In this sense, to improve the total quality, the manager will have to shorten the waiting time by redesigning the facilities of restaurant and dining procedures. Ivan doesn’t have to worry; he couldn’t control much in this situation.
The following are some solutions to the existing problems and ways for quality improvement according to the above analysis.
1. Focus on Prevention and Appraisal:
Management should adopt proper statistical methods (SPC) to analyze the present quality situation. The customer survey results provided in this case didn’t provide enough information about the individuals that were sampled (old vs. new customers, young vs. old). These and other variables could assist in finding remedies for the situation. Management could also use graphs and methods to track performance and quickly identify areas that need improvement. This is important to minimize the damage that a customer complaint can have on Jose’s reputation. Although there would be a cost involved in prevention, our recommendation is that the initial cost would outweigh the negatives incurred in the long run. Fresh ingredients are key to the success of Jose’s at both the internal and external customer level. The food quality is tying up the chefs who in turn tie up the servers. We aren’t able to compare present service to previous service so there is no way to know who is really at fault for the high wait times. Proper appraisal techniques are required to make these analyses.
2. Competitive Benchmarking:
Analyzing other companies in the same industry could be of benefit to Jose’s. A great example would be Red Lobster who gives customers vibrating indicators while they are waiting for a table. This would increase customer satisfaction because they would at least not have to check in every few minutes to see if their table was ready.
3. Design/Expand: If it is possible, Jose’s could add a bar or an arcade or toys for children while the diners wait. This has also been done by other companies in the same industry but would involve more capital.

References
Ritzman, Larry P., Lee J. Krajewski and Robert D. Klassen (2007). Foundations of Operations
Management Canadian Edition. 2nd Canadian Edition. Toronto, Ontario.

Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant (Case 4)

Ying Chen, Ana-Rita Silva
October 11, 2011

Professor Kumar
TOMS 5302D