Unit 12 Hospitality Provision in TT Sector Assignment – Waterlander

Introduction

The way in which any firm produces its own goods and services are managed using the science of operations management which has many models and helps in the rise of the productivity of the entire organization through proper utilization of the resources including human resources, time, funds, equipments, machineries,  etc (Heizer et al, 2009) The study aims to discuss the problems in the operations of the Waterlander Hotel which is having poor services especially in case of the banquet as experienced by the Plastix International at the hotel. Also it aims to apply the operation management model to sort the problems along with the use of the TQM at the organization. The total quality management places emphasis on the management and specification of the quality right from the supplier end to the consumer end thus affecting the whole process and people involved thus helping to attain high level of customer satisfactions through quality services provision (Roger, 2012). Further it aims to address the risks included in the food production systems followed by the illustration of the understanding of the concept of HACCC.

Problems at Banquet in Waterlander Hotel

In the service industry, understanding of the needs and the satisfaction of those needs is very important aspect of the customer satisfactions. As in case of the Waterlander Hotel, the processing of the food is the key operation where the food gets ready through kitchen operations and served by the waiters. For the management of the customer satisfactions which is based on the final outputs the processes in the organization needs to be managed and the flow of information must be proper. In case of the hotel, there are issues in the flow of the information among service providing stations in the organization.

Understanding Of Customer Expectations: The expectation of customer was minimal as they wanted proper red flowers on the tables, dinner arrangements on time, photographer, working video equipments, cleaning of the tables and the like(Heizer et al, 2009).

Services Standards: There are no standards in services delivery in the Waterlander Hotel as the agreed on and non written standards cannot be seen working in the inefficient teams with communication gaps as in this case. The rules and the specifications in the service organization must be in written and well communicated to all the staff in ordr to attain the service excellence which was lacking in this case.

Technological Support: the organization Waterlander Hotel was not having up to date video and photography support for the guests and their conference was ruined as they had to appoint an outside service provider for the purpose who messed up with all the other aspects of the service delivery and even the staff operations (Malakkoti, 2013).

Skills And Communication Gap: As evident from the case study there are a lot of information gaps occurring between the various employees in the organization and the outside contactor thus affecting services provided to the customer Plastix International. There are serious issues with the skills in the organization along with communication issues among the kitchen and other staffs including waiters at the hotel.

Management and Supervision issues: the role of the manager in the organization is the key in managing the flow of information and processes in the hotel and in this case the manager was not able to handle the skills and the process in the Waterlander Hotel.

Operations management can be useful in any organization in the implementation of the business strategy along with being useful in managing those strategies in the organization whilst being a driver of the strategy(Roger, 2012). The way in which any firm produces its own goods and services are managed using the operations management and its models The organization must plan a strategy in order to attain its long term objectives and the operational strategy can help the Waterlander Hotel in the managing the utilization of the resources and meet the challenges posed by the external environment and become capable of meeting the expectations of the stakeholders including the customers. The solution to the issues in the hotel can be through

• Management must sort out its internal issues and build strong communication flow channels in the organization
• Recruitment process must be altered to allow the matching of the job specifications with the personality and allow the skilled employees in the organization thus allowing better performance(Roger, 2012).
• Employee must be motivated through the use of the reward system in the organization so that the staff is motivated to perform towards the goals of the organization and show due commitment
• Training must be arranged for the internal staff of the organization in order to attain the skills needed for the better performance of the overall services to the customers
• Quality system specification are needed in the organization to allow better quality of services

Quality And TQM

Quality is based on the overall services offered to the customers in the service organization and employees may be having different opinions on the quality of the services while the customer also may have difference in the perceptions and the attitudes towards the quality of the services offered by an organization. As seen in case of the Waterlander Hotel, various internal employees were having differences in attitudes of the quality thus leading to low levels of the customer satisfactions. Quality at this hotel could be attained through placing focus on the customer needs and expectations. Quality improvement was though of adding costs to organization but actually it can help in saving money and resources (Business Link, 2009).

The total quality management is the process of ensuring the quality of services through considering the entire chain right from the suppliers to the customers end(Roger, 2012).  The TQM focuses on monitoring the manufacturing process in order to allow delivery of services at time and with client perceived quality. In case of the Waterlander Hotel, the customer needs were not given priority and the supplier must focus on understanding of client requirements while customer must also convey specific requirements. The main areas of quality focus for the Waterlander Hotel are discussed as follows:
Prevention Vs inspection: the Waterlander Hotel must change its approach from having inspection to being proactive or preventing any defects in the quality
Measurement of the quality: the quality must be quantified in terms of the customer satisfaction to understand if quality was being delivered in services and also quantification of costs related with quality delivery must be allowed to ensure if the resources are being used appropriately in organization (malakooti, 2013)
Management and quality: there must be a comprehensive exercise at Waterlander Hotel where all the departments like operations and human resources department must participate (Roger, 2012).

The TQM implementation for the Waterlander Hotel can be done as follows:
Involving Customers: particularly the internal customers at the Waterlander Hotel must be involved in the decision making in order to enhance their commitment with the quality of the services offer to the external customers  
Customers Oriented Mind Set: the focus must be placed on attaining the final customer satisfactions from the delivery of services with speed and on time  in customer expected manner
Clear Requirements: as Waterlander Hotel had poorly specified the requirements thus leading to wastage of resources in the organization and also the requirement specification between the customer and the supplier needs to be in non ambiguous and clear terms to allow maximum satisfactions. Non clear and improperly communicated quality specifications at Waterlander Hotel was one of the biggest loophole the organization faced in delivery of the quality services thus causing to dissatisfactions.
Kaizen Approach: the Waterlander Hotel must allow an approach towards the continuous improvement through pointing out the errors in the organization and taking actions in order to find their root cause and the elimination of the errors for the future improvement of the quality of the services (Malakooti, 2013).
Output And Quality Measures: the hotel must set in the indicators such as satisfaction of customers so as to ensure the resources of the organization including the staff of the organization are dedicated towards the quality approach (Roger, 2012)
Effective Leadership: the managers in the Waterlander Hotel must use their position in order to influence the staff in the organization and drive their commitments towards the quality provisions and must ensure the staff motivations through planning of the appropriate reward systems in the Waterlander Hotel. Also the training needs must be analyzed in order to bridge the skills gap in the employees and they must be encouraged to suggest methods of improving the customer satisfactions through changes in existing paradigms in the organization.

Risk Assessment In Food Service And Food Production

In the food processing industries as is the case of Waterlander Hotel, the hazard include any physical such as moisture or temperature, chemicals or biological substances as bacteria, fungi, etc that can cause harm to the food thus making it unfit for consumption by the humans (Mcdaniels, 2008).  The activities in the food handling operations involve the hazards but the level of the risk will actually depend on the manner the operations in the food processing industry are being handled. The risk could be defined as the likelihood of the hazard to cause the harm as to those people who consume the contaminated or hazard affected food in the industry. Thus the risk is the chances of the hazard causing harm to others or even being present (Heizer et al, 2009).  The food safety risk assessment deals with the understanding of the concerns towards the design of safety in the food service and food production facilities. The risk analysis in the food production and service systems deals with

• Assessment of the risks
• Management of risks
• Communication of risk (Mcdaniels, 2008)

The assessment of the risk in the food production systems as in case of Waterlander Hotel can be done based on making the list of the risks and potential risk causing factors in the facilities and food production systems at the hotel. This could be done by the manager and his team and the information about risks and hazards may be gained from the audits, consumer feedbacks, comments of the employees as in the case of the Waterlander hotel and conducting surveys and research. The cause and effect relationship between the food affecting agents and their impacts on consumers or the other stakeholders must be elaborated(Roger, 2012). The risk assessment helps in discussion of what would be the consequences if the risk persists and what could the possible outcome be. The risk assessment team at Waterlander Hotel including the manager must document the risks in the systems as follows:

What are hazards	Who might be harmed	Actions at present	Action necessary	Action by whom	Action by when (date)
Handling of food	Staff and consumers	Keeping the prepared food open and without temperature control thus leading to changes in texture and quality	Temperature control and keeping the food prepared properly stored Discarding of the affected or dried food items	Kitchen staff and manager	31 Dec, 2016
Maintenance of the video and other equipments	Consumers	Handling of electric equipments may cause harm and accidents sometimes The equipment are out of service causing client dissatisfactions	The equipments and setting must be maintained in serviceable condition and raining must be provided	Manager and technical staff	31 Dec, 2016
Lack of cleanliness and hygiene	Consumers	Cleaning staff is not working with speed Clients are getting unclean tables and food falls damages the guest dresses and shoes	Training of the relevant staff Reward systems to allow high level of motivations Ensuring client satisfactions Ensuring hygiene in systems	Manager and staff	31 Dec, 2016
Contact with hot equipments, fire, machineries, etc	Employees	Staff is skilled to handle operations Equipments are maintained regularly PPE is provided to staff	Staff must be trained   for their own safety Use of PPE must be made compulsory	Manager	31 Dec, 2016

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point

Hazard analysis critical control point is a preventive approach in the organization that helps in managing the physical, chemical and biological hazards in the process of food production that makes the finished products to become unsafe and the reduction of the risks through effective design of systems and processes (HSE, 2008). This can be used at all the stages in the food preparation and hence WHO has recognized the use of this system in control of the food borne illnesses and a way of ensuring the food quality from the harvest till the consuming stages in the food chains. The use of the documentation and the quality checks help in production of safe and non-adulterated food and could be used in case of the Waterlander Hotel.

The implementation of the HACCP systems in the organization involve the complete involvement and commitment on part of the management and employees and help in management of the quality as the International Standards Organization 9000 series (Mcdaniels, 2010). This could be helpful for the Waterlander Hotel which is currently facing quality issues including food processing and delivery problems thus causing high level of customer dissatisfaction with the services. Through the design of effective preventive measures and understanding the hazards in the food processing and delivery systems, the control could be managed. Through the implementation of the HACCP systems in the Waterlander Hotel, the safety of the food products for consumers can be ensured by setting of the health oriented standards in food production systems. This will be done in hotel through identification of the hazards and designing of processes and systems to eliminate them.

The Waterlander Hotel must first assemble a HACCP team consisting of general manager, purchase manager, food and beverage manager, head chef, services manager and HR manager and they must define the food products, its preparation and processing flowcharts. The seven principles in the HACCP which places focus on the control of the hazards associated with the food safety include the following

• Conduction of hazard analysis: the adverse impacts on the health safety of the consumers of the food is referred to as hazard which may be due to physical, chemical or biological actions (FAO,2010). The team at Waterlander Hotel must decide on the elimination of these hazards and their acceptable levels and they must identify the various potential risks in the systems including

• Menu plan
• Purchasing
• Receipt of raw materials
• Staorage
• Issue to kitchen
• Food processing and cooking
• Storage of cooked or processed food
• Service (HSE, 2008)
• Cleaning and maintenance

• Critical control points (CCP) determination: the certain points which are crucial in elimination of the health hazards must be clearly identified by the team and incase of Waterlander Hotel may include

• Inspection of quality of raw materials
• Safe storage (Kumar et al, 2008)
• Temperature of cooking and storage
• Personal hygiene and standards
• Cleanliness and use of equipments, utensils, etc(Kumar et al, 2010)
• Use of disinfectants. Etc

• Establishment of critical limits: the critical limits as in case of the food processing and production systems include the acceptable levels of the temperature, ph, moisture, time, texture and appearance etc which are decided by HACCP team (Roger, 2012)
• Monitoring procedures: any loss of the controlling at any of the  CCPs must be monitored at the Waterlander Hotel to allow hazard control and elimination
• Corrective actions: to deal with any deviation in the controlling at the particular CCP as in case of the Waterlander Hotel must be specified such as disposal of affected food.
• Record keeping and documentation procedures: the hazard analysis, CCP determination and the critical points must all be documented by the HACCP team at Waterlander Hotel and record must be kept of all activities involved
• Verification procedures: this includes

• Timely review of the HACCP system
• Audits and review of deviations
• Confirming controlling of CCP (Kumar et al, 2010)
• Complaints evaluation

Conclusion

The use of the operations management model in case of the Waterlander Hotel can be helpful in elimination of the problems with existing operations of the organization thus leading to the generation of the high level of customer dissatisfactions as including the Plastix International. This is mainly found to be associated with the lack of the quality specifications and the specification of the requirement of the quality. The total quality approach can be beneficial for the Waterlander Hotel as it emphasizes on the quality for the supplier to the end customer levels and thus helps in improving the condition of the customer satisfactions in the organization thus impacting the overall service image. The hotel should no more be depending on the inspection in order to assure the quality rather it should adopt a proactive approach to prevent the quality shortfalls such as development of HACCP systems. Also the training needs along with the reward systems along with involving them in the decision making could help the Waterlander Hotel in boosting of the motivation of the internal customers thus helping in driving their commitments towards the organizational objectives.

References

Heizer R, Barry; H, Jay H, (2009), "Operations Management", Fifth Edition, Prentice Hall Inc, USA.
"Total Quality Management" (2009) [online]. Available from http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/library/pathfinder/business/tqm.asp last accessed on 22 November, 2016
Malakooti, B. (2013). Operations and Production Systems with Multiple Objectives. John Wiley & Sons. Pp 129-57
Roger W. S. (2012), How Can Service Businesses Survive and Prosper?, Sloan Management Review, vol. 27, no. 3, Spring  online at http://umairbali.ekalaam.com/Business%20Process%20Workflow%20Analysis/Week6/SMR-ServiceBusiness.pdf last accessed on 22 Nov, 2016
Business Link, (2009) "Quality management standards" [online]. Available from http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.s=sl&r.lc=en&topicId=1074431977 last accessed on 22 November, 2016
McDaniels, T. (2008)Concepts and Analytical Tools for Risk Analysis and Management.
online at  http://policyresearch.gc.ca/page.asp?pagenm=v5n3_art_11. last accessed on 22 November, 2016
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.(2010) Risk Management and Food Safety - FAO Food and Nutrition Paper 65 (Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Consultation) online at www.fao.org/docrep/W4982E/w4982e04.htm. last accessed on 22 November, 2016
HSE (2008) Example risk assessment for food preparation, cooking and service
online at http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/casestudies/pdf/foodprep.pdf last accessed on 22 November, 2016
Kumar, A., Sharma, R. ad Kumar, D. (2010)HACCP IN HOTEL INDUSTRY Online at http://www.publishingindia.com/GetBrochure.aspx?query=UERGQnJvY2h1cmVzfC80NDcucGRmfC80NDcucGRm last accessed on 22 Nov, 2016