At Godfathers Pizza, employees strive to meet the needs of the customer through flexibility and responsiveness. Not only does our store offer pizza, we offer a variety of sandwiches that come with potato wedges, and we serve broasted chicken with or without sides. The chicken and pizza have various packages and sizes to choose from. Customers are allowed to make-to-order to the customers desire to a degree. Some requests may have added expenses. For instance, if a customer wants all white meat for their chicken dinner, an added cost will automatically charge the customer. When the customer orders all white meat, the added cost is explained to the customer so they are aware of the additional charge. By telling the customer, the customer has the option to pay the additional charge. An added cost will occur if the customer prefers a two piece white meat dinner with two sides with two chicken breasts instead of the usual package deal of a wing and breast. Variations can be accommodated to almost anything we do with consideration to cost. If a customer does not want lettuce on the ham and cheese sandwich but would like onions, there is no added cost, added customer value.
The owner of the franchise does a good job with total quality management and leaning processes. She trained all the employees within the store since she has been with the organization for 15 years. Seven years ago my boss bought the franchise and may operate the store according to what she believes to be the best for the store. Sheryl herself works approximately 35-40 hours unless necessary like the fair when we do over 40 large hot slices a night or better on top of our normal business.
Management is skillful and experienced with longevity of employment at the Hampton store as a bonus. Most of the management staff, but two individuals, have been with the organization six plus years. The quality of service has been refined and the amount of people needed on any particular shift has been reduced.
Most of the younger staff are teenagers who may begin at the age of 15 and most generally stay until they are off to college reducing our turnover rate drastically.
Leaning processes can help reduce the time it takes to complete tasks by positioning items for particular tasks near work stations according to work area. Two years ago when I began back at Godfathers Pizza, the owner and her daughter the manager, did well at managing time but had little to do with LEANing the processes to complete tasks according to work stations.
Over the two years the management team has strived to make improvements to reduce the steps to complete processes in our organization. The team began upgrading our housekeeping by move certain items, such as straws closer to the condiment stand. The straws were stored all the way to the back of the store instead of a storage cabinet just around the corner from the condiment stand.
The team also has chicken to bread daily. When the organization began selling broasted chicken, the processes to bread the chicken before cooking was extensive. First, one case of chicken consists of 96 pieces, with six bags per case. Each bag had to be opened, rinsed and drained, then we could begin breading. The franchise bought a tumbler to bread the chicken in and the tumbling machine to mix the breading and chicken. The tumbling machine took three minutes to tumble 48 pieces of chicken. Employees then put the chicken in two pans, covered and stored in the walk-in. Over the years the employees of at our store have eliminated rinsing like we did and have eliminated unnecessary steps to complete the preparation of the chicken. What once took three minutes just to tumble takes four minutes from start to finish.
When we take an order the time it takes to make the order and get it in are dependant on the size of the order, the sequence in which it was placed, and whether it is a table, to-go, or delivery order.
Organizations use many different ways to analyze the efficiency of the organization such as the use of charts. Charts help identify improvements in processes, trends in data, break down components, standardize data, show relationships, opportunities, and control. To use total quality management, the six-sigma approach helps to analyze problem areas, improve for added value, and the changes are controllable.
For example, leadership at Godfathers has a pretty good understanding of TQM. Sometimes because of the design of our programs used to take orders have glitches' when a customer orders a half and half pizza. The computer program cannot recognize that the half and half for a special so the program may charge more than the special. When this occurs, team members must be aware of the situation and adjust accordingly otherwise the customer will be charged more than what the special advertises.
When making a pizza or another type of product on the menu, specification charts assist in making the pizzas or products consistently. Leadership is looking over shoulders at all times to ensure each employee is responsible for processing orders in a fashionable, correct, and timely manner, according to specifications on the tickets. Table orders take precedence with appetizers going in immediately so the in-store customer has little time to wait once the customer has seated themselves.
