Chili's Projects

An example of a project Chili's is currently acting on is a process called ACT (Accelerated Cooking Technology). Accelerated Cooking Technology speeds your kitchen processes by shortening the time the customer orders until the time they get their food. That means more productivity from your kitchen, extra revenue during your peak periods, and happy customers who crave convenience and excellent food. Using ACT as part of their cooking system is considered a project because it is part of their research and development. They decided to use this system to make their business more efficient and have better customer satisfaction. Chili's figured that if they could cut down on cooking time and give customers their food faster they would be able to serve more people during their busiest times of the day without jeopardizing the taste and quality of their food.
Chili's uses a Gantt Chart method of scheduling to show how much time is required for each activity and when each activity will take place. A Gantt Chart can be made each day or each week for Chili's to determine what need to be accomplished to run a successful business. The Gantt Chart may consist of opening the building which would be a zero, then their would be preparing the food and setting the tables which would be a one. Without the building being opened workers would not be able to go inside the store and prepare for that days work.
The type of software Chili's would use to benefit their business would be able to schedule their daily routines, inventory, management, marketing and new product development.
Chili's is a well rounded chain of restaurants that knows what they need to do to be successful and competitive. They are on top of new technology and strive to be the best in customer service. If any recommendation should be made it would be to continue being there for their customers needs and to stay on top of their competitors to keep customers coming back through these hard times. Chili's should concentrate on new, low cost projects that can continue to introduce new ideas, services and products that will be beneficial to their customers and their franchise.

Supply Chain

Chili's supply chain begins with their supplier who retrieve the products ordered from their suppliers. They then delivers the food to that particular Chili's restaurant to prepare and then sell. Next would be the kitchen where the food is delivered to and where it is prepared before it is given to the customer. After the kitchen would be the server (waiter or waitress) who would take the customers order and then go back to the kitchen with the customers request. The server would then retrieve the food from the kitchen and then deliver the final product to the customer who would then eat and pay for what they are consuming. The money would then go back to the restaurant where it would be appropriately divided among employees, suppliers and other bills.

Chili's performance can be determined by its delivery, quality, time and cost. Chili's delivery is measured by their lead time or how long it takes for their food to reach the customer after being ordered. Chili's quality is delivered by the customer's expectation of Chili's quality products and service. Chili's time be determined by its cycle time which distinguish everything that happens in the supply chain and it can also be measured by the cash-to-cash cycle time which shows how fast Chili's makes money from their customers. Chili's cost can be determined by the unit cost or the total manufacturing cost and can be measured by the supply chain.

Chili's supply management that is currently in place is integrated approach to managing the flow of raw materials into an organization and the flow of finished goods out of the organization toward the consumer. Chili's does this by reducing the waiting time for a customer to wait for their food to be served from the time their order is put into the computer to the time it takes to get to the table. Chili's also does not keep a large inventory, but only orders what it will need for the week instead of having a large stash of perishable goods on hand that may not sell before they expire. Chili's orders what they need on the basis of their inventory system that tells them how much to order when a product is getting low so they lessen the chance of running out, but diminish the chance of being stuck with a large inventory.

Dimensions of Quality

Quality, what is quality? Quality in today’s world is depicted on how well a product or service meets a customer’s needs. Chili’s Corporation as well as Brinker pride themselves on quality when it comes to food and service. When looking at quality, we look at the four dimensions of quality, quality of design, quality of conformance, abilities, and field service.
Quality of design is set before the product is even produced, and decided upon by the marketing and research teams, who analyze customer buying and habits. Currently Chili’s is focusing on great quality food for a lower price. Chili’s just last month released a 10 for $7 deal; this is 10 food products for under $7. This conveniences the customer, and allows the corporation to stay busy during the hard economic times. Chili’s assessed the customer’s need for a lower priced product, and rolled out the 10 for 7 deal. By doing this customer have been coming in non-stop ordering because it is convenient for them to feed the family during the economic hard times.
Chilis will also be releasing its summer craze drink; the Mojito will be rolled out next week, this product is an immediate response to the customer’s needs. Many customers have requested mojitos throughout the corporation, and to answer that call and to compete with competitors Chili’s will put out the Classic Mojito, the Peach Mojito, and the Strawberry Mojito next week.
The problem with constantly pleasing the customer is that when you roll out a new product you usually take away an old product. I believe that Chili’s should stay focused on changing the products up, but it should be able to produce an older product if someone was to order it. Of recent Chili’s has expired the Blooming Onion (a very popular dish), The Classic Quesadilla, and Habenero Wings, and Ribs. Some of these items were favorites of customers and by not being able to make them in the store any more Chili’s is not listening to their customer and is at risk of losing some customers.
Quality of conformance is producing a product to meet the specifications; does Chili’s have the staff to serve the customers what the design has promised? Chili’s staff is highly trained in what it is to be a chili head (an employee at chili’s). Each server at the establishment goes through a 2 week training process in order to provide the best service to the customer. As well as the providing the initial training process, Chili’s has a mandatory meeting with all employees every three months in order to update all servers on menu items and suggestive selling.
Conformance is not only service, it is the availability, reliability, and maintainability of the product as well. When it comes to availability, chili’s does its best to provide the customer with whatever product they would like from the menu. The problem that Chili’s comes across here is that they are not always able to predict how much of an individual product will sell; because of this there are many times that the individual store will run out of a product. By not having the product available, Chili’s has what we call a down time. Chili’s wants to reduce the down time as much as possible, meaning Chili’s wants to have all products to serve at all times this way there is no down time, or time they do not have a requested dish. By reducing the down time they increase their availability and service.
In order to fix such down time problems each store should have communication with the other stores in their district and if it notices a product is getting close or below its safety stock it can pick up more of that product immediately from another location in order to supply the demand from its individual store. This way the store is able to provide the customer with any product they want all the time. It should also have some of the older products in stock in order to please some of the customers who enjoy some of the older classics, like the Chili’s Blooming onion.
Chili’s does its best to work without any failure, but it is hard to be perfect in such a busy and demanding work place. If there ever is a problem with food or service a manager is immediately sent to the customer. In this meeting the manager will assess the situation and depending on the seriousness, he or she will make a decision on how to handle the problem. The product may get comped (taken off the bill); the customer may be offered a discount on the bill, or even the meal entirely for free. Chili’s does its best to keep customers happy and returning.
By doing the above Chili’s repairs the problems and keeps a customer coming back. Chili’s has a high degree of maintainability and attempts to fix all problems as soon as they are presented. This is known as the companies maintainability, this refers to the ability to restore a product after failure; the faster the repair the happier the customer.
Along with maintainability comes Chili’s field service, field service represents warranty and repair or replacement of the product after it has been sold. Field service relates to the promptness and honesty a problem is solved with. This is very important to a product because this is what keeps a customer returning after failure. Chili’s try’s to have a long MTBF (mean time before failure), because the longer the MTBF the less problems they would have to deal with. If problems do exist though they are handled immediately, and it is made sure that the customer does not leave unhappy.
“Welcome to Chili’s” is the slogan and it means welcome to our house, welcome to the neighborhood, the friendly environment and the great service. Chili’s quality management system that is similar to the standards set in the ISO 9000. The principles of the ISO 9000 focus on customers, leadership, involvement, approach and continual improvement. Chili’s main focus is always the customer, “Customer first”, and “The customer is always right” is consistently stated at Chili’s. They pride themselves on manager leadership and team approaches to sales and the work environment. An example of this would be Chili’s annual margarita madness, every summer each individual store breaks its staff up into four teams and for a four month period whatever team sells the most margaritas wins a prize. Each team has a team leader, who is supposed to be used to motivate the team and to make trades with other staff members.
Chili’s set itself to the ISO 9000 standards and follows those standards pretty well. We believe that Chili’s need to work on setting a better safety stock or being able to have better communication with stores in its district in order to have all the supplies and food listed on the menu. Chili’s frequently runs out of certain products, and take a risk in losing customers by not having those products when they are requested. We also believe that Chili’s should allow for customers to order some of the older products off the menu. By supplying what the customer wants when the customer wants it, it will cut back on down time an allow the company to profit more.

Customer Service

1 (a)-[i] The tangible service is that the company try or focuses on providing a pleasant and happy server to its customers in order to excel in service they offer.
[ii] The psychological benefit that the company offers is that the food which will be served to its customers will be healthy and properly cooked.
[iii] The physical good offered by the firm is the prepared food itself for which the customer had come to the company at the first place
(b) The company belongs to the "co-routed services" part of the cell of service matrix, i.e. it has a standardized menu which it offers to it customers but also on the other hand the company gives some kind of customization power to its customers, for example if a customer wants his/her food well done or lightly done it can be arranged without any inconvenience.
(c) As we are aware that Chili's belongs to a service industry, so coming in contact with their customers is somewhat a part of their job description i.e. the employees at the firm directly link with consumers by taking their meal orders and also by seating them at their respective places.
The company respects their employees and care about their views that is why it has a special hotline number for its employees to call if they have any questions, concerns or even suggestions for the firm; this hotline is open 24 hrs a day and 7 days a week.
(d) The company offers a guarantee in the sense that if the customer feels the product is not properly cooked or it still has some cooking errors it would be taken back immediately and be replaced with a new and fresh dish.

Chili's Quality Control Methods

Chilis has 5 managers, 1 GM (who over looks store operations), a bar manager who takes care of all the alcohol sales, a floor manager, and 2 assistant managers. At the beginning of every shift a server is given goals to reach and are expected to sell this amount of any item. If these goals are not met for that month, Corporate comes in to assess the problem and possibly put a new manager in place. Each individual Chilis has its own set of individual goals to meet per hour, per shift, per day, per month and those goals are tracked. In the back of the store the server and managers will gather to see if their goals were reached, if not the manager will talk it over with their servers, and Corporate will talk to the GM to handle the problem if it persists. Once a month a company called Ecolab come into each Chilis and inspects them. Ecolab is the global leader in cleaning, sanitizing, food safety and infection prevention. They deliver comprehensive programs and services to foodservice, food and beverage processing, health care, and hospitality markets in more than 160 countries. Brinker International (The Company that owns Chilis) also hires shoppers to come in and test the servers knowledge of menu items in order to ensure the best quality service possible. Chilis does engage in continuous improvement as they use a 5 for 5 standard. 1. Appetizers 2. Soups 3. Deserts 4. Drinks 5. Margaritas. Each month these 5 just listed have to sell enough to reach the goals set and to receive "5 for 5." If they fail to reach the 5 for 5 standard, Corporate will come in and manage that individual Chilis for a week. Chilis uses a fishbone diagram because anything needed to be listed as a problem can be in that kind of diagram. Chilis does not engage in Six Sigma practices. As for any new ideas I think Chilis should consider, I would recommend they give employee benefits to help promote motivation in the work place.