Competitive Priorities

 

 

Competitive Priorities

 

Competitive priorities are considered the critical operational dimensions a process or supply chain must process to satisfy internal or external customers. The competitive priorities that a process or supply chain actually process and is actually able to deliver are cost, quality, flexibly and time. For our restaurant, we break down each one and put them in order of priority. We chose quality as our first top competitive priority. Quality can be broken down in two ways. Top quality which means delivering a top service or product for our customers and consistent quality which deals with keeping the design of our products and services consistent. At Noches de Colombia we believe we follow both methods. We deliver top quality food and service to our customers. Food must be high quality to satisfy and retain customers. We use the best ingredients, equipment and personnel to do this. We also make sure that all our food is prepared and cooked with the same measurements and consistency to maintain a consistent quality. Secondly, we choose flexibility. Flexibility can be broken down three ways. One is customization, which means taking care of the unique needs of the customer by changing the design of your service or products. Another is variety flexibility which is handling a wide variety of services and products. Last is volume flexibility that allows you accelerate or decelerate the rate of production to handle large fluctuations of demand. We identify with all of the subareas of flexibility. At our restaurant we have not only a restaurant but a bakery attached. We have a large variety of products to offer our customers. Some of our customers sometimes order plates that are not on the menu or have special request for baked good and we are willing to customize the dish to the customer’s specification. We also make our employee’s flexible so everyone is able to satisfy many post within the job by learning how to make drinks in case a bartender calls out or whether it be moving the employees front different front office positions throughout the month so they know each section. Third, we choose time which deals with delivery speed and on-time delivery. Delivery speed deals with quickly filling a customer’s orders which our restaurant tries to achieve with each customer. Food and baked good need to move in and out quickly. We have also trained our customers to move around the restaurant so there is no traffic within the restaurant. On-time delivery deals with meeting delivery time promises. We try to keep time as low as possible. At the restaurant we use technology to obtain exact wait times and open tables. Also, simple ticket system in back office (kitchen) that makes it simple and fast to serve the food in and out. Last but not least there is cost which deal with low cost operations that means delivering your services or products at the lowest possible cost at the satisfaction of both the internal or external customers. Noches de Colombia tries to keep the entrée prices as affordable to customers as possible. They offer large food proportions which represent the price of their food.

 

 Operation Strengths

 

Noches de Colombia has many strengths when it comes to operations management. At the top, the leaders are well experienced in maneuvering all operations to run as smoothly as possible. One of our biggest strengths is flexibility. At Noches de Colombia staff are trained to do a variety of tasks. For example, many of the waitresses are also licensed bartenders, this allows use to rotate all the waitresses and bartenders so that the ones who are most experienced work on the days where the bar is operating to its full capacity. Another strength in our operation is our automation.  At Noches de Colombia we use dual-purpose machines that help both the staff and the clients. Our ovens are dual purpose and are used for baking, warming up, cooking, and slow cooking meals. One of our automation tools we absolutely need is the POS (point of sale) system. The POS software allows the restaurant to do the following.

1.     Keep track of everyone waiting for a table

2.     Estimate wait times

3.     View how much inventory is needed

4.     Notify when a table is open and ready for clients.

5.     Record purchase

6.     Produce bill

7.     Pay bill

 

 Operation Weaknesses

 

 

                            

There are many operation techniques that can be improved upon or completely change in Noches de Colombia. Although the company runs smoothly the company does have its fair share of weaknesses. Based on the Pareto chart we see the focus of our customer complaints. The biggest weakness Noches de Colombia has is its waste management and policy. The company produces an insane amount of waste per day. At the end of the closing hour a dumpster truck comes to take in about two dumpsters full of waist. In addition the dumpster truck arrives at 1pm everyday to take in the waist caused by the morning rush. Waste disposal is very costly, the company pays a waste disposal company and loses money per meal in which all the food is not eaten and the rest is thrown away.