Calicut Operations Manageent free essay sample

Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC, is a part of Yum! Brands, Inc. (which also owns leading brands like Pizza Hut, Taco Bell) the world’s largest restaurant company with more than 36,000 locations around the world. KFC is the worlds largest chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States. It was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression. KFC primarily sells chicken in form of pieces, wraps, salads and sandwiches. It also offers a line of roasted chicken products, side dishes and desserts. KFC offers its signature products in India as well. It was the first fast food multinational to enter India. During the initial days in India KFC faced protests by PETA and many cultural and economic activists who used the term ‘junk food’ against KFC. Initially KFC targeted individuals who preferred individual meals of international taste. Later they changed their target to families. In KFC main menu items are Crispy outside Juicy inside Hot and Crispy Chicken; Spicy, Juicy and Crunchy Zinger Burger, Toasted Twister, Chicken Bucket etc. For the vegetarians in India, KFC also has great offerings that include Veg Burger, Veg Snacker and Veg Rice meals. In Calicut, the sales ratio of non-veg and veg dishes is 95% and 5% respectively. At present there are 223 restaurants across 35 cities. It is now targeting second-tier markets as it looks to achieve $1 billion in system sales and 1,000 stores by 2015 across 85 cities. 2. Organizational Structure KFC, as an organization, has following layers in its structure. 1. Area Coach This is the first level of the hierarchy (for a restaurant). The Area coach is responsible for all the trainings outside the KFC premises. He is the head of Field training. Under each Area Coach there are the Restaurant General Managers corresponding to the restaurants falling within the area of the Area Coach. 2. RGM (Restaurant General Manager) He is the head of a particular outlet. He is accountable for following the business practises and maintaining health and safety standards within his outlet. The KFC outlet in Calicut outlet has 1 RGM 3. ARM (Assistant Restaurant Manager) The ARM is responsible for the training of the employees for his outlet. He is an assistant to the RGM and is accountable for the day to day operations such as customer handling, purchases, adherence to safety and health standards etc. The KFC outlet in Calicut has 2 ARMs. 4. SM (Shift Manager) He is an assistant to the ARM and is responsible for his shift. There are 3 shifts and presently there are 3 SMs for the Calicut outlet of KFC 5. Team Member This is the first level in the hierarchy. To move over to the SM level, the employee has to go through an IDP i. e. Internal Development Process. The IDP is a training Program which is carried out by the in-house SMs as well as Buddy managers who visit an outlet to conduct the training. Presently there are 55 team members in the Calicut outlet of KFC. The number of team members in an outlet varies from 30 for a small outlet to 50-60 for a big outlet. The Hierarchy that exists in the KFC outlet and career path of the employees are shown below. Figure: KFC Organizational Structure Figure: Career Path of an Employee 3. Facility Layout The present location of KFC outlet is National Highway 17, Tazhekkod, Kozhikode, Kerala 673001. The outlet is strategically located in one of the market complexes on the national highway. The store also has expansion plans in the upcoming HiLite Mall in Calicut. The outlet spans across 5000 sq. Feet and is the largest facility in terms of sq. Feet area all over the country. The kitchen area accounts for approximately 1000 sq. Feet. Biggest outlet in India Seating capacity of the outlet is 210 Average footfall per day is 300-315 Figure: First floor, KFC outlet Calicut The outlet benefits from lesser presence of competitors in the vicinity, the only major competitors being Chic King and Dominos. Figure: KFC outlet Calicut Layout Design Dining area is equipped with a number of tables of different sizes, shapes and sitting capacity ranging from 2 to 16 in one table. Walls in this area are painted with graffiti designs which are similar for all the outlets across India. Music system is installed with equally distributed speakers across all corners that play soft music with very mild yet audible and enjoyable loudness. Kitchen area is very well isolated from dining area. It is restricted for only authorize personnel access to ensure safety and hygiene standards. Kitchen area comprises of: 3 storage facilities at different temperature level Manager’s cabin and a room for staff Sanitization and cooking area Kitchen area looks tight packed and constricted in size, but it is well planned standard of KFC outlets to minimize distance and hence travel time between different work stations. 4. Process Analysis KFC is a highly process oriented organization and hence their success largely depends how well they are able to design and implement the process specifically while fulfilling the customer orders. Like all the other aspects of KFC, preparation of the dishes also follows nation-wide standards to maintain same taste and quality across all the outlets in India. In terms of operation management a Process is defined as an activity that takes inputs and transforms them into outputs that, it is hoped are of great value to the organization than the original inputs. In simple terms we can say that it is transforming inputs into the desired output. KFC applies a Multi Stage Process Approach with a motive of Make-to-Order. Following are the processes involved in the preparation of any typical recipe. 1) Storage of raw material: KFC procures all the raw materials from fixed vendors to maintain constant quality. The process starts from Cold Storage, which is a designated area to store raw chicken and vegetables at varied refrigerated temperatures. Since items procured are of 3 different forms, it has to be stored at different temperatures as given below: a) Dry: Dry storage maintains a temperature close to 10? C to normal room temperature. It stores all the material that does not require cold storage. b) Chilled: The temperature required to store Chilled chicken varies from 1?  C to 4? C. The life expectancy for the items in this storage is for 1-2 days. Hence they take raw materials based on their forecasting and store the material accordingly which are to be used within next 2 days. c) Frozen: The temperature required to store Chilled chicken varies from -18? C to -35? C. The life expectancy for dry chicken is of 120 days. The storage room for vegetables and chicken is same but these items are kept at certain distance. KFC maintains a particular height above the ground and away from walls to store the material in all storage rooms. 2) Removing from Cold Storage / Sanitization: Chicken/vegetables are removed from the storage area based upon the daily forecast of the orders which is precisely the daily requirement to support the customer orders on daily basis. After removing from Cold Storage, this chicken is sanitized by washing and cleaning of the raw chicken through three different stages. After properly sanitizing, cleaned chicken is transported to Marination Process. 3) Marinating Raw Chicken: Marination is the process of soaking foods in a seasoned, often acidic, and liquid before cooking to add flavour by immersion in liquid. The liquid in question, the Marinade, is acidic in nature (made with ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice) or enzymatic (made with ingredients such as pineapple or papaya). KFC has reserved the secret recipe of this oil. At the same time various other ingredients are also added which includes flavoured items like herbs, and spices to further enhance the taste. Marination is done through a machine called Marinator. It is simple to operate machine which comprises of a chamber and an electronic controller to operate the chamber. The Chicken is placed in the chamber, add marinade, add ice cubes and put on the Marinator. Push a button and the unit turns for exactly 10 minutes and you are done. It takes about 300 rounds in 10 minutes. The temperature is controlled to 1? C to 2? C. 4) Breeding: Breeding of chicken is the process of covering the marinated chicken with a layer of secret KFC ingredients. A due care is taken to keep the product mix of the recipe constant at the same time it is another point of Quality control to check and ensure that Veg and Non-Veg section remains separated. 5) Frying Oil Draining: Computerized VAT process is a form of Deep Frying technique which uses a basket to raise chicken pieces of the oil when cooking is finished. VAT Fryer placed at KFC are equipped with features such as timers with an audible alarm, measures to prevent food crumbs from becoming over cooked, ventilation systems to reduce frying odours, oil filters to extend the usable life of the oil, and mechanical or electronic temperature controls. These fryers are used for cooking many fast foods, and making them crisp. VAT Fryer is placed opposite to the breeding table inside the Kitchen so as to make sure that the chicken pieces take the minimum time to move from the breeding table to the frying rods. Oil Draining is generally done manually with the help of bucket placed over the VAT fryer. This takes place over the VAT fryer only. Time taken by the process is 3-5 minutes. KFC standards are 5 minutes. 6) Buffering: The fried pieces of the Chicken are sent to the storage buffer for immediate storage. This storage section is called as Buffer. The shelf life of fried chicken is 2 hours, but it needs to be stored at regulated temperatures. This is important as to keep the freshness of the flavour and taste as it is. 7) Assembling the order: This process takes place at the Counter. The counter person assembles all the parts in Burger like bun, fried chicken, mayonnaise and other items as per the order. 8) Serving: The person at the counter serves the order to the customer along with cordial and warm gestures. 9) Inventory: There are various set of inventories at various points which are to ensure proper scheduling of the order. Automated times are installed to track life of products at the inventory. After the due lapse of time, inventory products are discarded immediately. For detailed analysis we have chosen following two products of two different categories, 1. Grilled Chicken Kentucky Grilled Chicken is marinated, seasoned and slow grilled to juicy perfection. 2. Veg Zinger Burger Assembly process of a burger where crispy fillet of 100% real veggies, topped with iceberg lettuce mayo, served in a soft sesame bun. Image source: www. kfc. co. in 4. 1 Process Analysis of Grilled Chicken 1. Thawing: Raw chicken is retrieved from cold storage and kept in relatively warm temperature to melt. Shelf life reduces to 48 hours from 9 months (in frozen storage). 2. Marination: This process starts with cleaning, removing damaged pieces, Removing fins, feathers and extra fat. Now chicken enters in Marinator machine in bundle of about 10 packets. Here it is rotated with secret ingredients, spices and water for 10 minutes. It is rotated for 300 times. 3. Aging: Marinated chicken is kept for 2 hours before further processes. 4. Cooking/Grilling: Chicken is now grilled at 250 °C. It is called Convotherm. Minimum 7 pieces are taken, which takes 14 minutes and hence 2 minute per piece. 5. Staging: Chicken is kept in normal temperature for 5 minutes before serving. At this time, shelf life of the product becomes 1 hour. 6. Delivery: Grilled chicken is delivered at the counter. Activity Designation Predecessors Time Retrieve Chicken/ sanitization A 3 min Thawing B A 480 min Marination C B 10 min Aging D C 120 min Cooking/Grilling E D 2 min Staging F E 5 min Delivery G F 1 min X represents the Shelf life of the item, after which the item is discarded. Here, X = 1 hour. Cycle Time= 480 minutes Bottleneck = Activity B (Thawing) Throughput Time = (3+480+10+120+2+5+1) = 621 minutes 4. 2 Process Analysis of Veg Zinger Burger All the activities in assembling Veg Zinger Burger are simple and very much similar to that of Grilled Chicken. The only difference is that in this process, there are three parallel lines of activities. Also, the activity ‘F’ in below table i. e. toasting the Bun takes place after a customer has placed the order. It goes through two steps of toasting that takes 35 sec and 9 sec to complete. Activity Designation Predecessors Time Sanitization A 3 min Patty Cooking B 4. 5 min Bun Preparation (Thawing) C 720 min Cutting lettuce D A 5 min Staging of Patty E B 5 min Toast Bun F C 1. 68 Min Assemble and Deliver G D,E,F 0. 32 min X, Y, Z represent the shelf life of various components before assembling. Any particular component is discarded if it passes this time. X = 48*60 minutes, Y = 24*60 minutes, Z = 25 minutes Cycle Time= 720 minutes Bottleneck= Activity C (Thawing) Throughput Time = 738. 5 minutes 5. Service Effective service is one of the key factors that provide a competitive advantage in this particular field of business. The KFC outlet provides 3 types of services Dine-in Take-away Delivery 5. 1 Service Design Image Source: www. studyblue. com/notes/note/n/exam-2/deck/2372497? KFC follows the Face-to-Face Tight Specs of service design matrix. The customers have the freedom to choose food items from a given list on display with very little variation while ordering at the counter. However all the activities are standardized, right from the beginning, like accepting the customer’s order, payment receipt till the lead time for the delivery of order etc. Moreover if a new food product is to be launched in an outlet, it will bear the same sort of standards (price, size etc. ) as set by KFC for the whole of India. Further with respect to workforce also the skill sets possessed by different set of workers (cook, on-floor staff) are standardized i. e. they undergo similar training and gain expertise for routine tasks. 5. 2 Service Blueprint Figure: Service Blueprint, KFC 6. Job Design KFC is internally sectioned into five departments: Cash Kitchen Supply Rider Order Take The structure at KFC can be represented as: The induction of an employee at KFC undergoes various pre-defined stages. The job design is specific in terms of what sequence is to be followed for an employee to earn ‘stars’. KFC has an institutionalized role orientation and employees have explicit information about the specifications of their job and timeline to be followed. With ‘mastery’ in each department, employee gets a ‘star’ with which salary increments are associated. The other criterion for promotion and salary increment is year-end performance review. Female employees, in most cases, are not able to avail all five stars as they are generally not trained in the ‘Rider’ department shown above due to safety concerns. However, this practice is limited to India unlike U. S. where female employees can avail all 5 stars. The below figure represents the induction of an employee into KFC: 6. 1 CHAMPS Training The CHAMPS training that an employee undergoes as part of CO training as mentioned above is to ensure that he can deliver all six aspects that the acronym CHAMPS stands for Apart from these six aspects of CHAMPS, Security is the seventh aspect for which employees are trained and proper precautions are taken. 6. 2 Working Hours KFC employees work in three shifts of 8-hours each for six days a week. If an employee has an unavoidable situation, he can apply for a leave and other employees are accordingly adjusted flexible so as not to compromise on meeting demands as well as employee motivation. 6. 3 Performance Review Employees are divided into different teams and each team performance is judged on the basis of the following parameters: Projection: Each team prepares food items keeping in mind the expected footfall. The accuracy of this projection determines the team’s performance and hence is an important judging criteria Punctuality: Each team is rated on how punctual the employees are and to what extent the employees conform to KFC norms Break through ideas: Creativity forms an important part of KFC culture and hence a major performance measuring criteria for the teams The team which excels in all these criteria in a given period of time is given an increment of Rs. 6000 per month and this motivates employees to perform better. 7. Quality Control KFC follows a set of standard measures for ensuring quality across all its outlets present all over the world. And it is the duty of the manager of the outlet to reinforce these quality checks on a regular basis. Some of them are mentioned below: 1. The procurement of raw materials (like chicken, vegetables, cooking oil) are made from specific vendors which has been entitled for providing the same. These vendors provide the raw materials as per standards set by KFC and the outlets must order/receive from them only. They cannot rely on local vendors for the sake of cost cutting per se. The Kozhikode outlet procured its raw materials from Coimbatore, Bangalore and Pune. 2. The raw materials are stored in cold storages with proper insulation and at a fixed height from the floor and a fixed distance from the walls. 3. Every food item at the KFC outlet has a certain shelf life associated with it (eg. Burgers have a shelf life of 10 minutes, Rice bowl+ Gravy=1 hr, Grilled Chicken = 2 hrs). On expiry of shelf life these food items are no longer served and have to be discarded. There are separate trash cans for veg/non veg items. 4. The cooking equipment are fully automated which maintains specific temperature for cooking different items. The oil used for cooking is also inspected on a regular basis and replaced if found below set standards. 5. All the employees of the KFC outlet have to strictly maintain health and hygiene regime. At the onset of joining itself the employees have to undergo medical examinations. Even during working hours after every 30 minutes or so, every working staff has to sanitize their hands. 6. The KFC outlet opens at 11:00 AM, so by 10:55 AM latest all the cleaning activities and cooking pre requisites must be performed. 7. The staffs are pre-scheduled to work(cooking, service etc. ) upon veg/non veg food items on certain weekdays and also has to wear aprons accordingly(green for veg/red for non-veg) 8. As soon as a customer enters the outlet, s/he must be greeted within 5 seconds. In case the floor people fail to do so, the employees behind the counter must acknowledge them. 9. The food items are prone to contamination by bacteria so they are either kept in cold storages at temperatures ranging from -23 °c to 4 °c or above 65 °c in the display shelves. 10. There is a Mystery Auditor who visits the outlet just like any other normal customer, whose identity is unknown to the staffs. S/he gives feedback upon the observations made on food quality, cleanliness, service etc. 11. There is another concept known as the Walk-of-8, wherein the manager of the outlet begins an inspection of outlet from a random point (be it kitchen, storage area etc. ) visiting every nook and corner and finally arriving at the start point. This walk has been found to be very effective in maintaining the quality checks and done on a constant basis. 8. Conclusion and Recommendation In Process Analysis, we observed that ‘Thawing’ activity is bottleneck in both the processes. It is an important and compulsory activity in which raw material is retrieved from freezer and kept at relatively higher temperature for several hours. This process can be accelerated using some heating equipments. It would reduce the cycle time. As the store is not in a prime location and also a bit off from the main road with sparse visibility it can put up hoardings to draw more customers. The outlet is sparsely occupied during morning. There is absence of additional parking space of its own. It can be dealt with offsetting the parking charges for the customers who use paid parking for their vehicles. This would effectively increase the customer satisfaction and hence, would increase sales by the virtue of it. In Calicut outlet, wastage is greater than 0. 5% (as set by KFC world standards). Hence a proper forecast for weekdays/weekends usage must be made judiciously in order to prevent excess wastage.