ORGANIZATION VALUE CHAIN
I once worked in a Japanese Restaurant as a server. In this position, my resources, the prepared food came from the kitchen department. My contribution to the value chain was to take the patrons’ orders present them to the kitchen staff along with any special needs and concerns that an individual patron might have. The kitchen then would prepare the food that I would then deliver to the patrons’ tables.
The kitchen staff was generally attentive to the servers, produced the meals in the correct order, and timed so that everyone at a table received their food at the same time. This made my job much easier and the excellent quality of the food satisfied my patrons and increased my tips. Problems would sometimes arise however when a patron would order one or more appetizers instead of an entrée. At times, the kitchen staff prepared all the appetizers for the table, including those intended as entrees. The value chain would have functioned more smoothly if there were clear areas marked for appetizers and entrees.
As a server, it was my duty to provide the kitchen with clear instructions as to the diners’ wants and needs. After the restaurant’s patrons finished eating, I gave them their checks and carried the payments back and forth to the hostess to process their payments. Although I provided the patron interface with both these departments, my greatest services were given to the kitchen. They needed the most information from me about each sale. As I mentioned earlier, the biggest problems arose when diners wanted appetizers instead of entrees, however, those were not the only potential problems. Some diners did not want a particular item in a dish either as a matter of taste or due to allergies. Other diners wanted extra elements, such as requesting a hot sauce be made “extra hot.” It was my responsibility to convey this information to the kitchen. There were times the staff did not understand what I requested. Nevertheless, my orders were generally clear and they said I was good at my job. One of the things I did to improve my service was to draw a line to differentiate between appetizers and entrees. That way they could easily schedule their work and my orders came out right. A better way to do this would be if I could generate two separate orders for appetizers and entrees.
Bibliography
There are no sources in the current document.
