Course:- SUP 3053 - Managing Operational Excellence in Organization 02

Bringing Order to a Chaotic Restaurant

Amy Peters, the co-owner of a restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut, has been feeling the pressure. When Vistas opened last year, it was the culmination of years of hard work learning the demanding culinary trade, working late nights, and suffering her share of disappointments along the way. Finally, after years of working in various positions within other restaurants, Amy found a business partner who shared her dreams. Together, they launched Vistas to considerable fanfare in the local community, with Amy running the business side of the venture and her partner serving as the executive chef. The restaurant had a large and diverse menu and the largest wine cellar outside of New York City. The future looked bright indeed.

Less than 10 months after the opening, Amy found running a restaurant of her own to be less than she had hoped for. In particular, patronage was down, and repeat customers were simply no longer coming, in spite of praise for the quality of the food and competitive prices. This behavior was puzzling because there seemed to be no obvious reason why people were not frequenting the restaurant as much in recent months. As Amy started scanning online rating services like Yelp (San Francisco, CA), she started noticing a pattern. Customer comments were generally positive, although there was one intriguing thread that seemed to run through many of the customer comments: "If you want to enjoy the widest menu options, make sure to arrive early."

Amy was curious about this opinion, and one Saturday night she made a point of staying until closing to get a sense of what was happening. She was dismayed to discover that by 9 pm almost half of the advertised entrees were no longer available, as the kitchen had run out of stock. When she questioned her partner, the chef, he admitted that they had no good idea of how many ingredients to order and, to cut down on expenses, he preferred to underestimate food service orders rather than carry too much in the freezer. He also was unsure of the amounts and types of food products that they needed to keep in stock to make many of their specialty dishes. Amy realized that they had to do a better job with materials management if they were to stay in business, but she didn't know what the next steps should be. Where should they start?

Question 1. How would materials management allow Amy and her partner to better organize and coordinate deliveries and maintain critical stocks of food for service?