Operations Management: Analysis of Subway's Quality Issues

This essay examines the causes of poor product and service quality at Subway, a fast-food chain that has faced criticism for issues such as mystery meat and rotten vegetables. It highlights the importance of quality management for business sustainability, customer satisfaction, and goodwill. The essay identifies factors contributing to Subway's quality problems, including internal conflicts, oversaturation, and supply chain issues. It then proposes five strategies for improving quality: Total Quality Management (TQM), Kaizen, Six Sigma, the EFQM Excellence Model, and GAP analysis focusing on agricultural products. These strategies aim to address issues such as inconsistent ingredient quality, lack of freshness, and failure to meet customer expectations. The essay emphasizes the need for Subway to prioritize food safety, customer focus, and continuous improvement to regain its reputation and ensure long-term success. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study resources for students.

System04099
[COMPANY NAME] [Company address]
MANAGEMENT

Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Poor product quality in Subway.............................................................................................................4
Tools to focus on agricultural products.................................................................................................6
Tools to measure and improve the product quality..............................................................................8
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................10
References...........................................................................................................................................12

Introduction
The report brings out a discussion on poor quality of products and services of an organisation.
With the increasing business complexities in the global environment, every organisation
wants to achieve maximum profit because investors are attracted due to higher dividend and
returns. In order to get and win maximum consideration of stakeholders, companies have
started engaging in unethical procedures, which may be either intentional or unintentional. It
is important to know that no company spoils their product or service quality in the eyes of
their stakeholders (Adam, 2016).
In this extensive race of competition, company avoids checking its quality and services, as
they believe that they have already employed many people to process quality. Here is an
example of poor product and service scandal of “Subway.” The fast food company was
claimed for poor quality food such as it provided mystery meat and rotten vegetables. This
has destroyed the “Eat fresh” tagline of the company that helped subway to reach to a
renowned fast food company (Ali, Adam, and Baharum, 2018). As it is among the world`s
largest fast food restaurant, consumers expect healthier and fresher food. Franchisees located
all over the world have been protesting the promotions and others are complaining of poor
quality of the products. It is necessary to build some strategies to improve the quality such as
choosing the statistical tools, motivating the employees, and proper coordination of resources
etc. The discussion further carries out some quality management tools such as TQM, six
sigma, Post Service Rating, smart vendor audit checklist, EFQM excellence model and
Kaizen to improve the poor quality of the fast food (CGMA, 2013). Apart from company`s
personal quality management, the company has to ensure that it uses agricultural goods
mostly. The discussion carries out GAP analysis and tools in regards to improve the quality
of agricultural products (Maze, 2018).

Poor product quality in Subway
With the increasing rivalry in the growing market, quality management is important for
business sustainability. Quality in products and services must maintain the customer
satisfaction and loyalty. A company can build a good image for its quality by complying with
the quality standards such as 9001 (TAYLORDEC, 2017). The products and services must
reach a certain quality level to meet the customer expectations, managing its reputation,
managing the costs, meeting industry standards. In other words, it can be said that quality is
important for a business for numerous reasons such as-
Customer value and retention, goodwill, safety and legal issues play an important role in the
success of any organisation. Moreover, in order to retain the customers for repetitive business
sales, an enterprise will have to sell the products that encourages customer`s expectations.
When a customer experiences bad, they may demand their money back or will never spend
the money to render the services (Maze, 2018).
Goodwill of the company relies on customer satisfaction attained by its services and products.
This induces the company to focus on quality of products and goods. It is appropriate for both
company`s promotional activities and customer reviews. Many countries form legal
requirements that a company has to follow while producing the products. Various laws such
as uniform commercial code (UCC) upholds the customer`s view regarding poor quality and
even if the company do not work well. This law also authorises the customer to sue the
company if they do not meet their expectations.
Fast food chain has struggled with the oversaturation and internal management conflicts that
have made difficulties around some stores of “subway” in 2018 (Maze, 2018). It is reported
that franchisees in UK has braced with bad news that internal conflicts and national sales
would face unprofitability soon in many subway`s locations. The problem started when
subway advertised itself as Fresh and healthier fast food chain but now each chain is falling

short. It is seen that after the outbreak of E.coli. Public strictly denied to use lettuce because it
can cause kidney damage.
Unfortunately, the employees could not check which lettuce they are using and it turned a
massive problem. Customers stated complaining that lettuce in dishes taste like shredded
paper. Customers voiced against their poor quality deliveries in their stores as these days’
customers have become very sensitive to desire cleaner labels and preservatives. To justify
the situation, the company said they rely on particular suppliers and refused to entertain any
media report of as it already adds fresh options. Therefore, when another employee said that a
lot of lettuce was found near the expiry and it already turned brown although they were in
vacuum sealing. The same rotten and spoiled condition was of tomatoes. As the company
work with more than 100 family farmers and other suppliers that help to ensure that
restaurant produces fresh. Most importantly, company cannot ensure whether produce
shipment delivered once or twice in a week. Moreover, due to use of local suppliers, there are
some potential threat of getting its franchise. A franchisee who used the products from the
local suppliers rather than going through a distribution process. In addition to this, it was
claimed that it served cheap quality of bread and condiments. With the emergence of other
local fast food restaurants and super-fresh chains, subway`s production problems kept
increasing.
To resolve these quality issues, Subway has to take into consideration some understanding of
customer`s preferences. As subway had failed major Public Relation problems which have
highlighted the failure to accomplish the increasing demand for fresh food. Currently, the
company is providing some services as its tagline “staying fresh” and by offerings broad
menu.

Due to fashion changes in each peak season, subway plans to update its interior decors of its
entire system in every three to four years. Some other comforts that it can avail to its
customers can be televisions for distraction for single diners, electrical outlets, and USB,
which will add value. Another way to create an attractive place, seating configuration will
improve experience on different occasions. Restaurants can seats in such a way to avail
communal study groups with well-designed tables.
Broad menu offering
Fast food chains have broadened their menu according to customer needs and expectations
such as soup, salad, and other items. These side options sometimes increase the average
check-ins. Subway includes sack of chips and drink. Therefore, it should extend its menu to
soups, salad, desserts, and delis that provides an opportunity to upgrade the meal offering to
make the order more profitable. Signature sides are designed to accompany sandwich lines,
sliced pickle, and some seasonal desserts that can avail the customers with more options.
Tools to focus on agricultural products
Undertaking only these actions cannot solve such as big issue, the company has to search for
proper quality management tools that can assist the management to improve the quality. As
subway is a fast-food chain, its raw materials are extracted from suppliers and distributors
who have direct contact to farmers (raw material is based on agriculture) (Black, 2018).
Below are the tools, which the subway has followed to accomplish the aim of providing fresh
and non-rotten vegetables (Mason, Nicolay, and Darzi, 2015).

(Source: FAO, 2011)
Management of food quality and safety in agricultural industry
It is important to understand quality and safety assurance is the responsibility of each person
in the whole chain. Improving the quality and safety as the main strategy to enhance the
competitiveness of agro-industrial enterprises. Primary producers such as farmers, processors,
distributors, packers and transportation till the point of sale or end with the customer is to
promote food safety to raise the awareness among the agents engaged in the chain.
Implementation of good practises in the production process, which is prerequisite at both
farm and operation level. The implementation of HACCP identifies and prevents the
uncertainty, which are specific in regards to process (Thomas et al., 2016).
To ensure the quality of agro-industrial organisation, GAP is an important tool that checks
the quality of food, which they are offering. The scope of GAP goes beyond the safety and
incorporates social and environmental consideration as a part of environmental, social,

technical, and economic sustainability of various production systems. GAP is important tool,
which ensure safety of food. It applies to those extended production activities of company
(Furterer, 2016).
Tools to measure and improve the product quality
While interpreting the traditional quality management, which focuses on controlling and
managing the quality where the final food goods are tested and inspected and a residue of
waste product is disposed off in the Dustbin. Whereas, contemporary business world has
rejected this approach and considered that following only this will lead to insufficiency and
profit drainage due to limited testing (Duggan, 2018). As a result, many tools were developed
that can aim to eliminate the waste.
To measure and maintain the quality of products and services it offer, subway has to
undertake more tools to keep a check on the quality such as total Quality management, six
sigma, EFQM Excellence Model, Post Service Rating, smart vendor audit checklist, and
Kaizen. Moreover, quality management includes planning and controlling actions that will
ensure that the products is feasible for the purpose and design certain specifications to meet
the expectations of wants of the customers (Newton, 2017).
TQM (total quality management)- The objective of TQM is to get the things ‘right at the
first time’, This approach increases the prevention costs such as system design, but it helps
the company to reduce the possibility of all the internal and external failure costs. This
emphasises by participating in whole the value chain and a guarantee to continuous the
improvement procedures by regular reassessment of processes (Azar, Vashist, and
Vashishtha, 2015). This system is integrated with planning and controlling the business
functions through which products and services can reach the customer expectation level. The
business behavioural philosophy embraces certain principles for employee involvement,
customer focus, and continuous improvement. TQM is not only limited to manage the

ingredients of the food product but it is a combination of various techniques that aims to
improve the quality such as checking the ingredients at each level of its preparation especially
for perishable goods. Moreover, it also undertakes full documentation of all the activities and
noting down the percentage of certain nutrients of the raw material and clear goal setting on
the part of customer perspective.
Kaizen
CIMA describes this Japanese word “kaizen” for continuous improvement for all the aspects
of organisational performance at each business level. It seeks to involve all the level of
employees and subordinates to encourage a suggestion level discussion for little improvement
across all the areas of business which further can had long-term impact. In context to
manufacturing framework, processing is standardised, examined, and improved with an aim
to decrease the waste and increase the productivity (Yekini et al., 2018).
Six-sigma
CIMA undertakes to describe Six sigma which is a methodology related to TQM that ensures
that it will achieve very low defect rates. Sigma is a Greek word, which is used to the
standard deviation. Apart from this, six sigma helps to interpret the error rate that lies beyond
the six standard deviations from mean. In order to accomplish six sigma, an enterprise must
not produce more than 3.4 defects in every million production. In case of fast food industry,
the company cannot serve poor quality and unsafe food to any customer and it usually it
escalates through word of mouth. Therefore, a fast food has to cater its customers. Business
can use several techniques such as statistical process to control and monitor through chart
processes (El-kest, El-Hariri, Khafaga, and Refai, 2015).
EFQM excellence model

It is a framework for the management systems, which was developed by European foundation
to manage the quality. This model aims to evaluate performance and integrate the tools,
processes, and procedures in order to introduce a new way of thinking that would encourage
continuous improvement. Main feature of this model is that it is a framework, which allow
the organisations to grade against nine main criteria. These nine key criteria focuses on cause
and effect relationship of how any organisation carries out the actions to achieve the
objectives (Schwarz et al., 2017).
(Source: CGMA, 2013)
Above tools are effective enough to maintain and improve the quality. Effective quality
management programme results into quality process and outcomes. This will helps the
company to achieve greater customer satisfaction and improved profitability. Quality
management improves the organisational culture that ultimately enhances the productivity. It
reduces the conflicts among the employees for blaming each other for adulterating the
product. Human is considered as an organisational asset. Low cost of fail, combining with the
shorter processing times that will result in cost saving.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concludes that managing the quality of the products and
services in the organisation has become a way to penetrate customer`s mind for repetitive

sales. It will increase the customers-base in long term through frequent check-ins. On the
other hand, poor quality of products and services can leads to customer dissatisfaction, poor
reputation of organisation and loss of equity. The discussion carries out many tools to
measure and improve the quality of goods and services. Following a traditional method of
testing and examining, the product can not be helpful to any organisation to succeed.
Moreover, contemporary business world attempts to bring out some more tools that have
replaced the traditional methods. Among all the approaches, six sigma undertakes to consider
more than six factors. This shows the deviation from the standards productivity. Other
approaches and tools consider checking the quality by different ways and works on
improving the quality. Maintaining service quality is important is fundamental to the success
of the organisation. Many fast food chains suffer from lack of quality and unsafe food that
become difficult for the companies to retain its customers. A bad experience of any customer
will multiply in several customers in a period of time due to negative feedback. These several
tools and methods improves the business quality by clearly identifying the problem and
measuring the ultimate service goals. In this way, company motivates the employees and
train them for quantitative and qualitative tools which they use for customer feedback.

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