Hard Rock Café’s main line of business, the café, is determined by the efforts of the kitchen and wait staffs. One of the ways productivity can be measured is through the surveys given out. The surveys represent the view of the customers whether they are satisfied or not. The satisfaction of the customers reflects how the efficient and productive the wait staff are in catering to their needs and the kitchen staff are valued by how speed and quality of their food. With differing tastes, the management can measure the answers by how much they improved on average. Another indicator, other than surveys, is the times when customers opt to find another place to dine because of their reservations (i.e. speed, hospitality) against the staff.
The wait staff’s productivity specifically deals with how many customers they can respond to efficiently and satisfactorily. Since the service sector’s quality is subjective, the wait staff should be able to meet the demands of different customer types. This includes being able to engage with their customers and being friendly and hospitable. Also, the speed and efficiency of the wait staff, such as placing the correct orders responding immediately when customers call, is a factor of measuring their productivity. This can be measured against how long they have been with the company as well as how much training and experience they have had.
The productivity of the kitchen staff, on the other hand, is more focused on the quality and the speed at which they churn out the food and drinks their customers order. This is subjective to the customer’s personal tastes and preferences and measuring them is based partially on the customers’ feedback, just like the wait staff. The taste of the food, the way they are cooked (i.e. steaks) and how fast they can be prepared can be attributed to the key competences of the kitchen staff such as training and experience. Apart from the surveys, the rate at which orders are sent back to the kitchen is also an indicator of how productive the kitchen staff are.
In differentiating Ford Motors and Hard Rock Café’s OM decisions, we must understand that Hard Rock Café’s operations are mostly service-oriented; their retail being a secondary feature while Ford Motors sell products primarily and their services are secondary.
In their decisions regarding goods and services, Hard Rock Café’s focus is more on the intangibles, which includes the selection of the service crew. Ford, on the other hand is more focused on the motor vehicles that they produce. As for quality, the café has subjective standards that cannot be quantified, but qualified. As for Ford, there are objective standards when it comes to quality. In process capacity and design, Hard Rock directly involves the customers, using them as benchmarks to modify their services to match their capacity with the demand. Ford’s process capacity and design does not, mostly, involve their customers because of its nature as a manufacturer and the products that they sell. As for location, Hard Rock’s decision is two-fold. Being a restaurant, their needs are like Ford’s. Their sources for raw materials should be, as much as possible, near to their suppliers. The rest of their services, being intangible, does not necessarily need a location. The layout for Hard Rock usually depends on the changing times and customer adherences. In Ford’s case, the layout of the plants should be designed specifically to optimize production efficiency. Human resources and job design for Hard Rock, customers may be involved to know precisely what kinds of people they are looking for and how they want to be served. Ford focuses more on the technical skills and the standards of labor should be consistent for them. Supply chain is not a crucial factor in Hard Rock while it might mean losses for Ford which is critical to the final product. The only inventory to be considered in hard rock are the stocks of food while Ford must consider all components in creating their product. Because the café reliant on customers, schedules are usually placed to meet customer demands, while Ford’s ability to convert its inventory may level their rate of production. Lastly, maintenance for both occurs at the place of business. The difference lies on the time the customers are willing to wait. While Ford can take weeks, Hard Rock must take, at most, a few minutes.
