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Food Quality Management
Assignment
1
Background *
QUALITY COSTS *
COSTS OF CONFORMANCE *
COSTS OF NON CONFORMANCE *
COSTS OF LOST OPORTUINITIES *
QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM *
EXAMPLES FROM MY ORGANISATION *
CONCLUSION *
REFERENCES *
Background
The Organisation is a Spanish company which owns hotels and has a very large catering business division which serves 100,000 customers per day across the complete range of activities from schools, hospitals (both in the private and the NHS sectors), factory canteens, airport passenger lounges and hotels. It has, as well, a central kitchen where every working day they cook and distribute, 2,000 school and nursing home meals
This assignment will focus on the management of the central kitchen.
QUALITY COSTS
As The Department for Enterprise, DTI (1992) wrote "Quality related costs are those incurred in the design, implementation, operation and maintenance of an organisation's quality management system, the cost of resources committed to the process of continuous quality improvement, plus the cost of systems and/or product failures. Quality related costs arise from a range of activities, all of which impinge of the quality of the product or service. For example :
Sales and Marketing
Design, research, development
Purchasing, storage, handling
Production, planing and control
Manufacturing
Delivery, installation
Service
The Costs of quality are = Cost of Conformance + Cost of non-conformance"
Starling (1988) suggests that the cost of conformance is the "necessary expenses associated with failure to meet customer requirements."
COSTS OF CONFORMANCE
Prevention costs : Costs of all activities specifically designed to prevent poor quality in services. Examples are the costs of new service reviews, quality planning, supplier capacity surveys, service process capability evaluations, quality improvement team meetings, quality improvement projects, quality education and training.
Appraisal costs: Costs associated with measuring, evaluating, auditing services to assure conformance to quality standards and performance requirements. These include the costs of incoming and source inspections and tests, in process and final inspections and tests, service audits, calibration of measuring and test equipment and the cost of associated materials and supplies.
COSTS OF NON CONFORMANCE
Unnecessary expenses associated with failure to meet customer requirements. They are:
Failure Costs: Costs resulting from products or not conforming to requirements or customer/user needs. Examples are the cost of scrap, rework, reinspection and retesting, processing customer complaints, customer returns, warranty claims.
Exceeding Customer requirements: Costs of unnecessary extras. Examples include: response time in excess of customer requirements, overly elaborate presentation and service recall.
COSTS OF LOST OPORTUINITIES
Profit not earned owing to lost customers and reduction in revenue because of non-conformance.
Example : Cancellation due to poor service.
QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM
In the design of a quality assurance system it is necessary to meet customers requirements maintaining, at the same time, food safety requirements. Through a good quality assurance system, the staff will know the quality standard which is required by the organisation and how to achieve it. This quality assurance system should contain, as well, everything necessary not only to make a quick and certain control of quality but also ensure food safety.
Before setting standards relating to products and processes, it is essential to know the customer's requirements. Once the organisation knows these, it should establish the internal demands (manufacturing standards) in order to achieve the external (customer) demands.
The quality assurance system must have detailed information on every product, raw or cooked, which goes into a manufacturer's premises.
Therefore every product file must contain the features and characteristics of the product required by the customer. Early (undated) established that the key information which should be displayed in food product specification is :
product name
specification code
manufacturer's name and address
ingredients listing
nutrition data
chemical composition
analytical standards
microbiological standards
organoleptic standards
physical product standards
handling and storage requirements
durability / shelf-life
product weight / configuration
authorisation by supplier and customer
Additional information which may be supplied includes :
supplier code
reserved product description
manufacturing location
target shelf-life into depot
minimum shelf-life into depot
country of origin
health mark / plant number
declaration of ingredients not contained
raw material preparation
manufacturing flow diagram
on-line Quality Control requirements
product coding
metal detection requirements.
EXAMPLES FROM MY ORGANISATION
The staff in the central kitchen numbered 40 people. As part of the team there were two chefs, the manager and a food physician who belonged to the Food Quality Control Department. This department was based in the Organisation's Head Office and it directly reported to the Company's Managing Director.
The organisation was committed to minimise quality costs in the central kitchen which amounts to 6 per cent of the sales turnover. Nevertheless they wanted to effectively implement the quality assurance system.
The quality costs were especially high in prevention costs (Costs of conformance) and in the failure costs as well (Cost of non-conformance).
The head of the Department and the food physician went to the central kitchen early in the morning every working day. Their mission was to check and to ensure important elements such as if all the staff were handling the food safely. They also they checked and spoke with the staff to know if the cooking process was the correct and if the food reached the right cooking temperatures. Finally they checked the way the food was put into the storage containers and the best routes for delivery to the different catering outlets.
On a weekly basis, the Department received all the bacteriological analysis on the food (salad, main course and dessert) and in the staff's hands and nose. Any procedure which could avoid or minimise food poisoning risk, was adopted.
The company had a major concern to ensure quality and food safety to its clients. The President of the company knew that the prestige achieved, could disappear in seconds if the company failed in any step preparing the food.
The President's commitment to achieve and maintain high standards of hygiene was clearly known to everybody who worked in the central kitchen. Furthermore, the staff knew very well what the company expected of them.
Srenger (1998) explained that training will contribute significantly to the profitability of a business by:
assisting in the production of safe food
safeguarding the quality of the product and reducing food wastage
reducing complaints
generating a pride in appearance and practices, increasing job satisfaction and probably reducing turnover.
contributing to increased productivity
ensuring that all the correct procedures, including cleaning, are followed
complying with any legal provision or the requirements of Industry Guides or codes of practice
promoting a good company image which should result in increased business; and
improving the supervisory skills of manager
The food industry will also benefit by having available a pool of trained food handlers.
In the Company, the training was carried out by the food physician. Every session started by playing a video tape about the subject being taught. Afterwards there was an analysis of the message, followed by a discussion in which all the staff members participated.
Moreover, during every year, there were two training periods in September and February for four hours a week during each of these months.
With the same purpose of ensuring customer quality and food safety, the Department of Quality Control printed a "Cleaning Log-book" and a "Check List" which helped the manager and the chefs of the central kitchen to ensure that their work was more hygienic and safe.
The first of them was a "Cleaning Log-book" which had four columns. In the first column was the list of each of the objects in the kitchen to clean daily.
In the second one was written down the frequency to clean these elements: daily, weekly or monthly.
In the third one, the person or persons responsible to clean each of the items.
In the fourth one, was noted the cleaning product used to clean each item specifying the temperature of the water.
The second file was a "Check List" with about 60 questions related with the kitchen's function, including the freshness and quality of the raw products, the condition in the cold and freezer rooms, the hygiene condition of Food storage and stock rotation.
This "Check List" was a very important tool to maintain for the chefs and the manager to ensure the cleanliness, hygiene and food safety required for the Company to obtain the customer's satisfaction and, on the other hand, to avoid the nightmare of food poisoning.
The central kitchen's manager should keep upto date both of these files because the Food Physician had a very strict control about the running of the kitchen.
CONCLUSION
As Chaudhry (1997) suggested," better quality leads to higher product reputation, increasing the market share, better exporting capabilities and higher profits".
The only way to achieve all these excellences is through Total Quality Management, which for Chaudhry (1997) "emphasises the attainment of customer satisfaction through an integrated system of tools, techniques and training that has been successfully applied to various industries, including the service sectors".
Moreover to implement a Total Quality Management program constant attention is necessary and the support of top management. Companies not only will grow in profits but in staff and customer's satisfaction.
REFERENCES
Chaudhry, S. Sohail, Tamimi A. Nabil, Betton John (1997) "The Management and control of quality in a process industry" International Journal of Quality & Reability Management, Vol. 14 No. 6, 1997.
DTI, The Department for Enterprise " The case for costing quality" (1992) Meeting Deelines Ltd.
Early, Ralph "Guide to Quality Management Systems for the Food Industry" (undated) Chapman & Hall, London
Husa Hotels "Cleaning Log-book" (1992) Department of Quality Control. Barcelona (Spain)
Husa Hotels "Check List"(1992) Department of Quality Control. Barcelona (Spain)
Page, Christopher "Sutcliffe Catering's Approach to Continuos Improvement" (1994) International journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Copyright 1994 MCB.
Sprenger A: Richard "Hygiene for Management" (1998) Highfield Publications.
Starling L. Stephen "Total Service Quality Management" (1998), California State University, Hayward papers
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Sheffield Hallam University: MSc: Hospitality Assignments