Recommendations

Lean Systems

Problem: Company has problems with two of the seven types of waste discuss in the book; Transportation and Waiting& Motion. 

For our company these three waste categories offer the company opportunities for improvement and increase work productivity. T&L catering caters food to multiple sites, which means that food has to be transported, moved from place to place… etc. However that being said there are other factors that influence the problem, for instance employees’ arrival time, time spent on loading the vehicle, and the travel time. When unexpected situations happen and a staff member has to travel back, it causes additional problems, Waiting & Motion are those causes. These two types of waste are consider together in this case; the reason being one follows the other. The first waste calls for a waiting period where everything is put on hold unto the required product/service is received followed but a burst of movement where the staff has to jump into action in order to finish the set up on time or to make deliver on time.

Recommendations

One solution is to hire more drivers to help with transportation and setup. However, since we highly recommend hiring more event managers to better define and organize the project, it would be pointless to hire more drivers. To better satisfy this problem we recommend strategy that involves allocating two employees and a vehicle with the sole purpose of taking inventory at all five banquets hall including the main post. The employees will travel to each location; write down all the needed supplies in an inventory sheet. From there they will come back to the main building, pull all the inventory that is needed, load them into the work van and travel back and unload the supplies in each hall. It may seem like the company will have to do a lot and it may cost more. However the group will recommend that this process be one day, preferably a non-busy day; Wednesday is the best choice for the company, it’s considered a slow day, not much is going out and most of the chef are preparing for the weekend. In addition all the banquet halls are not being occupied.

Inventory Management

Problem: Insufficient inventory to cover unexpected shortage of any given material in our banquet halls.

T&L catering host many different events and parties on a weekly basic; weekends are the company’s most busy days, and on a given weekend there could be up to four events in the span of those three days (Friday – Sunday) in one location. For the staff, having the right amount of inventory in-stock is the key to the high level of productivity that the company excels in. In regards, the problem managing inventory in all areas could post some challenges, although responsibility of inventory check falls to the manager the specific banquet hall. To further expand the problem; in case of shortage, an employee would have to travel back to the main location (varying in distance) to restock and return to the hall. In the process this affect several parameters of an event. For instance, it decreases the work force and increases the set up time. The less hands setting up all the needed materials, the more responsibilities allocated to the rest of the team. Along with that another factor that contribute to inventory shortage is the company’s additional service where they cater food off-site events. On off-site parties, the company still has to set up with the appropriate material to provide the service.

Recommendations
Currently, the company restocks products as they run out or are short of equipment at an event. In order to avoid inventory shortage at an event, we highly recommend that the company invest in introducing a process system where they could manage inventory. Out of continuous review system (Q) and periodic system (P), we highly recommend the company use continuous review system.
Advantage of periodic system is less time consuming and inventory can be managed at lower cost; without investing in high-end technology. However, periodic review system will not give an accurate measurement of on-hand inventory since more the company performs more than one event in a week.
Continuous review system requires implementing technology that will allow the company to continuously monitor their inventory stock, stock within store and stock taken on an event. Even though continuous review system can be expensive, it is a one time cost for a small business which is less complicated and requires minimum to no maintenance; compared to the systems used in retail stores.
Out of two possible solutions to track inventory, the company will benefit from using the continuous review system. It will provide accurate number and lower chances of inventory shortage at an event. This will save the employees extra trips to the store while at an event.

Defining and Organizing Projects

Problem: Company needs to organize it's events to lower eliminate failures or any other problems.

The company does a very good job in keeping a hand on all the events and deliveries that it does along the week. Although there are some aspects of the planning an organizing that shows room for improvements. In regarding to the planning, they currently use a sheet with all the food that has to be made thought-out the week, it including onsite staff, type of food that needs to be made, the event hours with additional arrival time for employees. The sheet is hand written by the owner or the operation manager; this can cause some confusion among the other departments. It should be noted that the company currently use a specific set of requirement when creating a “project” they inquire the right information from the client which helps the employees better understand their responsibilities.
In contrast the size of the company play a major role in the functionality of these processes. T&L Catering is consider to be a local business, distributing their service in the metropolitan area. The number of employees may not compare some of this competitors but considering the amount of service and products the company provides, T&L catering has been very successful. As far as mangers there are 4 employees that run the operations based on department, although there is an operation manager. 1 chef, 1 sub-chef, the Owner and Op-Manager, all have a set of objectives that have to meet, each allocate those duties to employees.

Recommendations

We believe that the company should hire more managers which will help the company easily define and organize a project or use computerized system to organize and select a manager for the upcoming event.
Out of two recommendations, we highly encourage T&L Catering to hire more managers because it will lower the workload an employee has to go through at an event. Computer system is a good tool to use to organize events. However, no two events will have similar requirements and tasks. Therefore, the company should consider hiring more event managers who can analyze and organize a project better than a computer.