Operations Analysis of The Ledbury Restaurant: A Detailed Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of The Ledbury restaurant's operations management, focusing on customer service and efficiency. It begins with an introduction to operations management and the restaurant's background, including its location, layout, and competitive environment. The report then delves into the operational processes, utilizing process maps and the Four V's profile (Volume, Variety, Variation, and Visibility) to assess performance. An operations analysis is conducted, employing cycle time analysis to identify areas for improvement in customer service and production. The methodology involves secondary research and data analysis to evaluate the restaurant's current state and identify opportunities for enhancement. The report offers specific recommendations for improving operations, such as optimizing customer service procedures, increasing product variety, and enhancing market visibility through effective marketing strategies. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement in the restaurant's operational practices to maintain its competitive edge and enhance customer satisfaction. The report highlights the significance of factors like location, layout, and competition in the restaurant business. The report emphasizes the importance of improving the restaurant's operations, and providing the best variety of food to the customers, and offering the best customer service.

Operations Management and Service
Excellence

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Operation Process............................................................................................................................4
Process Map.................................................................................................................................4
Four V's Profile............................................................................................................................5
3. Operations Analysis.....................................................................................................................7
Methodology................................................................................................................................8
Analysis........................................................................................................................................8
4. Evaluation of operations..............................................................................................................9
5. Recommendations......................................................................................................................10
6. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
The operation management is known as administration of business practices to improve
the efficiency of organization. It is also considered as the utilization of goods, resources and
capital in right order to gain high productivity in market place. For this report The Ledbury is
selected as small business organization.
The Ledbury is a restaurant in London, United Kingdom. Its legal structure is Creery
custom incorporation. It was established by Brett Graham in year 2009. the complete address of
the restaurant is 127 Ledbury road, Notting Hill W11 2AQ, The Ledbury is facing issue with its
location is the over crowed area because it is located near to the station. Because of over crowed
area restaurant is facing issue of noise pollution.
London United Kingdom. Layout of The Ledbury is so simple and bright. The layout of the
restaurant is designed to keep it bright and full of light. To enhance the brightness and improve it
as well, whole setup of restaurant is kept white with black curtains. White table and chair, cloths
are used with wooden flooring. Total sitting capacity of The Ledbury is 55 people at a single
time. Dining style used in restaurant is casual elegant. Issue in the layout of restaurant is related
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Illustration 1: Location of The Ledbury
(source: The Ledbury, 2019)

to customer service (Parisio, Rikos and Glielmo, 2016). The sitting capacity of The Ledbury is
55 and there in not enough space to handle more customer at same time and it is so,because they
are little slow with customer service and they need to consider ergonomic consideration again to
make it proper to improve customer services.
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To provide better experience to customer at the time of designing ergonomic
consideration were highly prioritized. The whole structure of restaurant is designed by
considering the colour combinations and different structural designs. Motive of restaurant owner
is to attract consumers towards the service and layout of location. The dine area is completely
separated form the kitchen in order to make the movement of people and environment free from
noise and disturbance. Layout of restaurant is designed to improve dine experience of customer.
The Ledbury is in restaurant business so products and services provide by them are
related to food and beverages. Food served in The Ledbury is of British cuisine and
contemporary European Cuisines (Uhl and Gollenia, 2016). The after service rating provided to
the restaurant is around 4.9 stars by customer. The customer are facing issue with menu chart of
restaurant because The Ledbury is serving food of British cuisine and European Cuisine so the
limited number of choices are there for customer In UK, The Ledbury is one of the most famous
restaurant on international level and it is important for them to maintain their performance in the
global market. There are many restaurants around The Ledbury these can be considered as
competition. Main competitors of restaurant are Westegg, Caractere, The Walmer Castle,
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Illustration 2: Simple Layout prefer by Restaurant

Ottolenghi and Nectar. These are some top restaurant which are located nearby to The Ledbury
and giving tough competition by offering services and food at comparative low cost. Issue
related to the competitive market is The Ledbury is offering food of only one or two cuisines but
other restaurant are working with multi cuisine food that is providing competitive advantage to
other restaurant.
This report is providing information about how restaurant owner can use different
strategies to resolve different issues faces by restaurant in market place and analysing solutions
for each problem to check effectiveness of operation management. Various factors in the
restaurant business like location, layout, product and services and competition are considered to
evaluate their their importance in the operation of organization. The operation processes of The
Ledbury are evaluated in report through different tools. Different operation of organization are
also analysed in report. Operations of Restaurant are evaluated to provide recommendation for
operation management of The Ledbury.
Operation Process
To improve the operation of organization customer service procedure is used. The
Ledbury is facing issue with customer service because of small size and ergonomic issues. This
is slowing down the speed of consumer service (Burns and Dewhurst, 2016). Customer service is
the base performance of a restaurant. It is one of the most important operation in restaurant
business. The profit earn by restaurant is depended on the satisfaction of consumer and It is
highly depended on the services provided by restaurant. By providing better customer service
and high quality and tasty food restaurant can minimize other issues as well. There are different
tools can be used to improve the operation process of restaurant. These tools are process map,
Four V's profile and performance mapping.
Process Map
Process map is a normal flow chart that is used by organization or restaurant to manage
the operations as a pre decided plan to avoid other consequences. For customer service a protocol
is used by different restaurants (Hammer, 2015). The specific method and process that can be
used by The Ledbury is presented in flow chart. This process map can be considered as a
guideline to serve the customer with high satisfaction. This flow chart starts with arrival of
customer at restaurant. First thing customer is asked with for any reservation or booking before
arrival. If their answer is then waiter lead their way to dine table and in case there is no
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reservation done by customer then they are registered first then allotted with table. They are
introduced with menu and waiter takes their order. As per the order of customer are server with
ordered dishes. During this period cashier prepare their bill with detailed information. After they
complete their dinner or lunch waiter provide them bill. After they pay the bill waiter transfer
this cash to cashier and change is returned to customer by waiter. later all this process manager
or waiter thanks them for coming to the restaurant (Reid and Sanders, 2015). As the guest leave
the table cleaning staff clean the table and serving a customer process end with this cleaning.
This is how a specific procedure chart can be used by The Ledbury to improve customer
satisfaction.
Four V's Profile
Most important thing for an restaurant is its conversion rate. This conversion rate can be
considered as how the restaurant management is managing the available resources to improve the
productivity and performance of restaurant in market. This four V' s are Volume, variety,
variation and Visibility. This is essential part of restaurant business. All aspects can used by the
restaurant to improve the performance and guest satisfaction.
Volume
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llustration 3: Customer Service Flow Chart of “The Ledbury”

It is duty of the organization to provide the best quality product to customer to improve
their satisfaction level. To meet customer demand with the best quality food is difficult for The
Ledbury. To prepare food with high quality needs extra time because to cook food completely
chefs need to complete required procedure (Hitt, Xu and Carnes, 2016). So to full fill the
requirement of customer organization need to improve its production rate to serve more
customer. This is important for restaurant to improve consumer services.
Variety
For an organization range of product and services are required to provide chance to guest
to select one of the product. High range of product attract more guest and it is important for them
to attract people or other region. If an organization is performing business with only few
products it will make the guest to lose their interest in restaurant and food products that are
served in The Ledbury. To improve the performance and operation they need to provide more
option by adding food from different cuisines to implement better consumer service.
Variation
Most of the practices of restaurant are standards and this is usually protocols followed by
them to serve customers. These protocols are constant in operation and for regular guests these
protocols are bit annoying. To improve performance and continuous development restaurant
need to implement various changes in protocols and menus to provide variation to customer to
keep their interest high in organization. The Ledbury is providing product of same cuisine to
customer and this is major issue for restaurant. And this can be improved by introducing new
range of cuisine food in restaurant and provide more option in customer services to generate high
revenue.
Visibility
For any business visibility to customer in market is most important. This visibility in
market can improve their market share and their positioning in competitive market. For a small
business marketing is best tool to make organization visible to customer. The Ledbury is many
times considered as the best restaurant in all over world but still their reach to the people is not
enough for high growth and productivity. For better customer service it is required to make them
aware of product and services of The Ledbury.
Performance Mapping
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Performance mapping tool is used by marketing department of organization to check
positioning of company and its product in market place. Here positioning of The Ledbury is
provided with respect to other competitors in market place. This is usually prepared on the basis
of research and customer reviews. The services quality and price is compared to other restaurant
to check positioning of The Ledbury in market.
3. Operations Analysis
Operation Analysis is that method which examine the current performance of operation
investment and also measure the performance against the set price, schedule as well as
performance factor. Further, it is also a less structured in nature and also determine The Ledbury,
how cost could be saved, or how to meet the objectives in better way (Radanliev and et.al.,
2019). For this purpose, Cycle time analysis and supply network design are used which includes
decisions on facilities.
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Methodology
In order to increase the customer results, The Ledbury should uses Cycle time analysis in
this section and this is so because the firm needs to gain high competition in market and also
develop better opportunities for innovation as well. Through this process, The Ledbury will
increase the productivity and also creates better positioning for the distribution channels. The
information is collected through secondary sources by using articles, books and journals. As per
the above, it is realized that the company needs to improve its operation management and
provide the best variety of food to the customers. Apart from this, by using cycle time analysis in
the analysis section, the quoted restaurant will easily reduce the production time and it
automatically enhances the operational productivity that leads to produce the best variety of
quality products and services to their customers.
Analysis
For Operation Analysis, The Ledbury uses Cycle time analysis which is a technique that
determine the total length of time which an activity needs in order to complete a cycle. Further, it
is also measured by the amount of time in which an input to a business activity is required in
order to transform to an output (Cycle time analysis, 2018). By using this analysis, the company
will easily determine the opportunities for insight and the achievement of a continuous process
betterment as well. Apart from this, the main aim of this model is to identify the process
improvement as well as efficiency, which is easy to use and benefited the business too. As the
company have issue with regards to customers service and that is why, it uses cycle time
analysis. However, in order to improve the customer service, The Ledbury hire the team and
wants to improve the long waiting time of the customers and thus, the department begin by
determining the scope of project by noting customer's arrival an exit time.
In addition to this, in order to improve the baselines, the team introduce the points on a
process map for measurement and also records the time when they move from one point to
another, thus the team review the data collects and find out that customer has to wait for long
between entering and ordering. Thus, in order to improve the customer service and offered the
best products to their customers, there is a need to use Cycle time analysis. As this tool help The
Ledbury as a benchmark for their productivity and this cycle time also used to improve the
productivity as well as reduce the cost too (Hu, Youn and Wang, 2019). Not only this, the Cycle
time analysis also used to gain high competitive advantages by delivering the services faster in
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market and also helps in understanding as well as managing at corporate cost structure which
leads to improve profitability from cost saving too.
Moreover, Supply Chain Network is another satisfactory design framework which
consider all element such as product, market, technology, cost and other external environment
factor. It is also known as Network Modelling that is mainly created in order to optimize the
supply chain network. Moreover, it is also analysed that in this modern era, due to rapid
technological advancement, many companies develop their basic supply chain into more
complex structure so that it generate better connectivity between two organization. Therefore, it
is the application which is mainly designed in order to reduce the cost of supply chain and it is
also realized that most of the supply cost is determined by the location of facilities as well as
flow of the product between the facilities (Murray and et.al., 2019).
Moreover, an effective supply chain management will helps a business to attract wide
range of customers and it also boosts the customer service too. As the customers are expected
the correct products assortment and quantity from the restaurant. Thus, in order to satisfy the
need of customers, it is quite necessary for them to deliver the right product at right place.
Further, it is also analysed that it also assist The Ledbury to decrease the purchasing and
production cost. Therefore, using supply chain network helps to improve the financial position
and also decrease the fixed assets (Wegner Maus and et.al., 2019). As The Ledbury need to
improve the product and services as well as customer service. Therefore, it s quite beneficial for
the firm to use these tools in order to manage its operation. So that the company will deliver its
best services to the customers.
On the other hand, there are some factors which also affect the supply chain network such
that government policies of the country, political climate, local culture, taxation policy. Thus,
company has to deliver the best sources that helps to meet the aim as well as provide best
services to their customers as well (Wakui and et.al., 2019). Hence, it is analysed that supply
network design is not only provide operating framework to an entire business but it also guides
the management so that they will critically examine the structure which does not influence by
external factors, while creates an opportunity in order to maximize the profitability too.
4. Evaluation of operations
From the above, it is realized that operations in restaurant plays a crucial role in the
business process because it creates the highest level of efficiency which is possible within the
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business. Moreover, It is also evaluated that the operation management is mainly concerned with
the converting the material labour into goods as well as services which helps to maximize the
profit of the firm (Radanliev, P. and et.al., 2019). As it is analysed that in The Ledbury, there is a
need to improve the customer service and for that, it is beneficial for the firm to use Cycle Time
Analysis which helps to determine the actual time that is required in order to convert the input
into output. Apart from this, it is also evaluated that it provides a structured method that identify
non- value adding activities that affect the workforce into negative way. Moreover, this method
also help The Ledbury to identify the actual time of completion for completing the work in
desired manner.
Apart from this, it is also evaluated that The Ledbury should use Four V's in its operation
management in order to improve the customer service. That is why, in its volume, restaurant
should provide the high quality of services in order to fulfil the demand, while on the other side,
in variation, restaurant should change its serving style. As it is evaluated that it constantly serve
the same product in days, that Is why to attract more customer, there is a need to change its
current existing operation process (Stadnicka and Litwin, 2019). That is why, The Ledbury has
to vary the food items so that it will help to attract wide range of customers and manage the
operational service as well. Further, the quoted restaurant has good customer experience and that
is why, the firm did not make any efforts in order to attract high range of customers. But, the
company has to keep introducing new services so that it will help attract customer services and
also improve the existing customer services as well. Thus, it is also realized that by using these
theories and tools, the company will easily enhance the customer services into better way and
this will also sustain the brand image in market too.
5. Recommendations
From the above, it is evaluated that Ledbury needs to improve its customer service
operation so that it is quite beneficial for the firm to provide effective training session to their
staff so that they will effectively communicate with the customers. Thus, it is analysed that a
regular staff meeting should also happen so that employees should also know about the aim and
objectives of company which they have to achieve. In order to reduce the long waiting time of
customer, it is recommended to The Ledbury to use Kiosk as advance technological method. It
is the tool that mainly handle the transaction which allow the employees to keep focus on their
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