Operational Excellence: A Detailed Analysis of The Kitchin Restaurant

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of The Kitchin restaurant's operations management and service excellence. It begins with an overview of the company, including its mission statement, services offered, competitors, and location. The report then delves into the key operational processes, such as order collection and delivery, highlighting the use of a real-time process management system. Waste management techniques are also examined, emphasizing the restaurant's commitment to minimizing waste through careful sourcing and training. A 4 V’s analysis (Volume, Variety, Variation, and Visibility) is conducted to understand the restaurant's operational activities, followed by a discussion of the five performance objectives: cost, quality, dependence, flexibility, and speed. The report also critically discusses the supply chain of the organization, mapping out the network and identifying key suppliers. Finally, the report concludes with recommendations for improvements to the operation, justified with a clear rationale, and supported by relevant academic literature and industry best practices.

Running Head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 1
Operations Management and Service
Excellence

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 2
Table of Contents
Introduction and Company Overview..........................................................................................................4
Overview.................................................................................................................................................4
Mission Statement:.................................................................................................................................4
Services Offered......................................................................................................................................4
Competitors.............................................................................................................................................5
Map of the location.................................................................................................................................5
Layout Diagram.......................................................................................................................................6
Organizational Structure..........................................................................................................................8
Key Operations Processes............................................................................................................................8
Process Management............................................................................................................................10
Waste Management..............................................................................................................................12
4 V’s Analysis.........................................................................................................................................13
Five Performance Objectives.....................................................................................................................16
Cost........................................................................................................................................................16
Quality...................................................................................................................................................17
Dependence..........................................................................................................................................18
Flexibility...............................................................................................................................................18
Speed.....................................................................................................................................................19
Supply Chain of the Organization..............................................................................................................20
Conclusion and Recommendations...........................................................................................................22
References.................................................................................................................................................25
Appendix:..................................................................................................................................................28
.................................................................................................................................................................. 29
Figure 1: Logo of The KITCHIN................................................................................................................3
Figure 2: Opening Hours of the Restaurant.................................................................................................4
Figure 3: Map Location of Restaurant (Google Map)..................................................................................5
Figure 4: Layout..........................................................................................................................................5
Figure 5: Entrance Area of The KITCHIN..................................................................................................6

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 3
Figure 6: Kitchen and Dining Area..............................................................................................................6
Figure 7: Operations of The Kitchin............................................................................................................7
Figure 8: Order processing system..............................................................................................................8
Figure 9: Process Management....................................................................................................................9
Figure 10: Waste Management..................................................................................................................10
Figure 11: Menu........................................................................................................................................12
Figure 12: Supply Chain Network.............................................................................................................19

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 4
Introduction and Company Overview
Figure 1: Logo of The KITCHIN
Overview
The Kitchin is a quality restaurant that is established in the year 2006 in Edinburgh, United
Kingdom. The organization is operated by Tom Kitchin and his wife Michaela and it offers fresh
Scottish produce in French style from Kitchin’s time spent with Alain Ducasse. Within 6 months
of opening, the organization was awarded a Michelin star. The Kitchin is situated in 78,
Commercial Quay, Leith, Edinburgh (The KITCHIN, 2018).
Mission Statement:
The mission of The KITCHIN is its philosophy statement i.e. “From Nature to Plate” that
indicates that it intends to serve nature to plate of guests and that is the passion intended by Chef
Tom Kitchin who established this food outlet partnering with Michaela Kitchin.
Services Offered
The Kitchin is established to offer relaxed environment to the diners by managing Scottish
heritage that can be seen all over its textures and tones. It provides non-intrusive and welcoming
services to their guests that are its specialty of critical dining experience (The Kitchin Restaurant
Limited, 2018). The opening times of the restaurant are:

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 5
Figure 2: Opening Hours of the Restaurant
Competitors
In this area, the major competitors of The Kitchin are such as Wedgewood The Restaurant,
Mimosa Kitchen & Bar, Tuscan Kitchen Rye, Kezban Meditarranean Restaurant, Café
Domenico, Warehouse Kitchen and Aurora etc. (Williams, 2011).
Map of the location
Looking at the below map, it can be stated that the location of The Kitchin is perfect as a large
number of visitors can reach to there. In the nearby area, there are various famous hotels like
Merith House Hotel, A-Heaven House Hotel, Malmaison Hotel etc.

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 6
Figure 3: Map Location of Restaurant (Google Map)
Layout Diagram
The building layout of The KITCHIN Restaurant is created below:
Figure 4: Layout (Source: The KITCHIN)

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 7
Figure 5: Entrance Area of The KITCHIN
Figure 6: Kitchen and Dining Area

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 8
Organizational Structure
Key Operations Processes
At The Kitchin, it is crucial to offer the customers unique dining experience that is wanted by
them. The Kitchin is offering its products and services to a large customer base in the area by
managing its operations effectively. It has implemented different operations strategies to practice
its core business activities so that it can enhance its service delivery for increasing its profits and
revenues.
Thomas William Kitchin
(Owner)
Front Office
Waiters/
Waitresses
Back Office
Chefs House-
keeping staff
Kitchen
assistance staff
Restaurant
Manager

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 9
Figure 7: Operations of The Kitchin (Source: The KITCHIN, 2018)
The above figure showcases the core activities and processes involved in operations and service
delivery to final customers. It indicates that after designing the menu, the restaurant sources the
desired materials from different suppliers like kitchen equipment, food material and furniture.
Key operations processes of The Kitchin are divided into two processes i.e. order collection
process and delivery process.
Does customer have reservation?
If Yes
Is there Table available?
Customer reaches
at restaurant If No
Check availability
of table
Yes
Allot the table
Find the details of
booking
Verify the details
If Full

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 10
If Right Customer
Figure 8: Order processing system
(Source: By Author)
No matter what size, location or type- each and every restaurant has a basis layout which
includes some areas like entrance, kitchen and dining area. At The Kitchin restaurant, layout is
related to positioning and allocation of tasks for the transformation of resources.
Process Management
Process management is an important process that assists The KITCHIN to make its operations
smoother (Oakland, 2014). The KITCHIN considers that it is very important to share the order
information among the employees in kitchen and dining area. In order to manage its order
delivery process, this restaurant is using a real time process management system. This system
allows the kitchen staff to check the dishes ordered by guests. Also, the dining area staff can
know the situation of customer with the help of a monitor (Davis, et al, 2018). At The KITCHIN,
modern British cuisine influenced by French cooking processes and these are blended with own
Order taken by
the Executive
Allot the table to dine-in
Guest goes to
waiting area
Order receipt shared
to Kitchen through
POS
Preparation of FoodServing the food in
plates
Guests have the
food and leaves
Clean the table

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 11
Scottish heritage of Chef Tom Kitchin. As mentioned above, this restaurant is focused on serving
the nature to plate so it is very much focused on enhancing the quality of food (The KITCHIN,
2018).
To improve the quality of its processes, The KITCHIN uses below-given process.
Figure 9: Process Management
(Source: By Author)
The above figure shows that The KITCHIN restaurant is able to enhance quality of its operations
by using natural ingredients and good cooking techniques. To manage the reservation process,
the company has provided online booking facility where guests can reserve their table by
following some easy steps. Due to its excellent quality of processes, the organization was
awarded as Michelin star in the year 2007 along with various awards like ‘Best UK Restaurant’,
‘Best Restaurant in Scotland’ and ‘Best Restaurant Experience’ in the year 2015 (The KITCHIN,
2018).
Waste Management
Considering the importance of waste management in operations management, The Kitchin is
using different techniques to eliminate the waste from its production processes (Pirani and
IdentifytheneedsofcustomersIdentifyqualityindicatorsUseofnaturalingridientsinfoodAlignwiththefoodandqualitystandardsUseFrenchcookingtechniquestoimproveproessServethecustomerseffectively

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 12
Arafat, 2014). To eliminate different types of wastage, The Kitchin samples the every dish which
they serve to the customers (The KITCHIN, 2018). At The KITCHIN, produces arrive fresh
daily as the team of its suppliers supplies the outlet with the seasonal produces every day. All the
fish and meat is purchased in whole and filleting and butchering is performed in-house routinely.
The chances of wastage are very low at this restaurant as they are using effective techniques. The
owner of organization is providing effective training to its chef and other staff to manage the
wastage of produces and food products. His passion for freshest and finest Scottish food helps in
reducing the wastage of inventory and defects. Apart from this, it may face the wastage issue
related to waiting as the opening hours are limited (The KITCHIN, 2018).
Figure 10: Waste Management
(Source: Pirani and Arafat, 2014)
Additionally, dairy products and perishable items have shorter expiry date so it monitors them
very closely (Rhou, Singal and Koh, 2016). Under waste of overproduction, The Kitchin ensures
that they are offering significant value for their money (The KITCHIN, 2018). It has been