Although the length of the paper is not predetermined, a 1015 page analysis, including data and appendices, is probably correct. You will also share a summary PowerPoint presentation with fellow students during the Week 6 Discussion.
The Final Course Project Proposal with the PowerPoint presentation is due by the end of Week 7 (graded).
Required Outline
The following outline is required for your Course Project.
Executive Summary (less than one page)
This summary is a short, carefully worded description of the problem situation that identifies the recommended solution. A brief justification and explanation of the selection method is to be included, highlighting factors that contributed to selecting the recommended alternative.
Decision Problem Overview
Describe the nature and scope of the decision problem selected, its history together with causes, and the outcomes of any previous attempts to deal with it.
In order to define the problem correctly, the following questions should be addressed.
What is the general nature of the problem?
What event triggered the situation?
Are we imposing any constraints on the situation?
What are the underlying elements of the problem?
Are there dependencies on other decisions?
Briefly introduce the key decision elementsobjectives, alternatives, consequences, and uncertainties; details are to be discussed in the following sections.
Objectives Statement
Explain each objective in detail. Separate objectives into fundamental and means objectives. A minimum of three objectives is required.
Alternatives
Describe each alternative, and explain how the alternatives differ from one another. A minimum of three alternatives is required.
Selection
Describe the alternative recommended and why. Explain the tradeoffs you utilized or present a weighted scoring model. Explain why you feel that this report contains sufficient information to make a decision on the problem. Describe any additional information that would be useful to have.
Consequences
Explain how you determined the values for each alternative and their corresponding objectives. Show your consequence table, either in this section or as an appendix. Include the bases for forecasts and any techniques or tools used to estimate consequences. Discuss the reliability of your predictions. Indicate what events were considered to be uncertain, explain the probabilities of their occurrence, and what information you used to establish your confidence level in these probabilities. A minimum of two uncertainties is required for the paper.
Implementation, Monitoring, and Control
This section contains a detailed implementation plan. There will be an explanation of how the recommended alternative will be implemented, resources dedicated to accomplishing it, and key individuals who will be responsible for the plans success. Details should be included on how the plan will be monitored, subsequent evaluation criteria, and how the plan can be amended.
Works Cited (at least two external sources should be used)
Presentation
Once you have outlined your paper, you should be ready to begin a PowerPoint presentation. As you develop the contents of the sections in your paper, you should extract bullet-point ideas that best express your intended message. If you prefer, use the slides to brainstorm and organize your thoughts before writing the paper. Then refer to your presentation to guide and remind you of the flow of your storyline.
The presentation will be used to showcase your decision problem in one of the Week 6 Discussion topics, where you will receive feedback from your fellow students. This exercise will assist you in finalizing your Course Project prior to submission at the end of Week 7.
Executive Summary
This report is a decision-making plan of a hospital restaurant, which is experiencing problems because its clients are complaining that the quality and price of foods offered by the restaurant are not up to standard. Several objectives are identified, including ensuring that the restaurant is run at a cost-effective manner, and the employees are given monetary and non-monetary incentives to boost their performance. The recommended alternative for addressing the problem is offering the workers a non-monetary incentive, which is reached after discovering that this will not cost the restaurant substantial resources, and because it is realized that such an incentive has many other benefits that address virtually all the problems that the restaurant is undergoing. A committee of implementation is, consequently, appointed to foresee implementation of the project by the end of the current fiscal year. The implantation will be accompanied by regular evaluations to monitor the progress of the project.
Introduction – Overview of Decision Problem
Problem Statement
The studied hospital restaurant has failed to meet the expectations of most of its customers and employees due to a variety of reasons. Ideally, many customers have been frustrated for failing to get foods that satisfy their needs. At times, customers have visited the restaurant only to find that the kind of food being served does not meet the value for their money, perhaps because it is of low quality or it does not match their taste. Yet still, many customers have complained that the price of the foods sold in the restaurant is too costly, yet it is of low quality (Cannon & Morgan, 1990). In an attempt to address this problem, the Hospital has previously selected HealthFoods Inc. to help its employees in making value-based and informed decisions, but these efforts were not very successful. Since the hospital is operating within a highly competitive marketplace, there is a strong need to address the cost of food provision in the facility without compromising quality. After a comprehensive review of available solutions, the expertise of the Hospital’s clinical team will work together with the restaurant staff to offer a strategic opinion on benefits plan design.
Objectives
1. To provide food services in a cost-effective manner
This will be achieved by reducing the overall cost of each meal per patient by 2 percent by the end of the current financial year. The managers in charge of the food will be required to evaluate the cost structure of provision and delivery of the meals, currently, and make a decision as to whether a 2 percent reduction is practicable. It will also be important to identify the means through which changes in methods of preparation, reduction in staff, or any other modifications can be achieved by amending or formulating methods of production, but taking the consideration that all those who shall perform the tasks that will help achieve the objective will find some value in doing so; else they will not support the process.
2. To improve the quality of customer service to enhance customer satisfaction
The restaurant will involve all the workers in a customer service improvement program intended to increase the number of loyal customers by 10 percent during the current financial year and 20 percent in the subsequent year. This will be achieved by providing high quality customer services, through integrated efforts to ensure the expectations of the customers are met or even surpassed. This will also be achieved by first identifying the customer needs, and then meeting them accordingly. In this respect, the management of the restaurant will have to recognize that the restaurant’s services and products have got no value if they do not constitute what the customers really want. Since the customers’ needs and preferences differ, especially considering that the restaurant serves customers from different backgrounds, a carefully planned strategy is required. To counteract these challenges, the hospital restaurant will persistently draw together market information, which will help the organization remain at par with the customer wants. This will be achieved through data collection methods such as market surveys, focus groups and customer interviews, just to mention but a few. The restaurant will also be guided by the principle that it is in operation because of its customers, and as such, it must focus on their interests and ensure that they are satisfied (Ambroz, 2004). Basically, achievement of this objective will require the organization to set aside some funds to offer the staff a refresher course to improve their service provision, while some will cater for their motivation. The budgeting committee will be entitled to assess whether a 10 percent salary increment and £150,000 budget for the refresher course will be sufficient to achieve this objective.
Improving the quality of foods provided at the restaurant.
Since the restaurant has received some complaint from some customers because they are not satisfied by the quality of foods they are served, the management will purpose to upgrade the quality of foods to attain a 100 percent satisfaction by the end of the current fiscal year. In other words, efforts will be made to provide customers with foods of high quality such that no customer will leave a negative feedback in respect to the quality of food provided by the hospital restaurant. To achieve this, the organization will focus much on improving the skills of the current staff and employ about 5 employees, who must have worked for at-least 5 years in a top star hotel, by the end of the current fiscal year. By doing so, it will be expected that injecting new blood in the organization will bring in valuable experience, which will also be beneficial in upgrading the skills of the current staff. In addition, the refresher course described above will also include training on catering methods, especially the latest methods that will help the restaurant attain market competitiveness. To avoid worker’s apathy, appropriate efforts must be taken to motivate them, including increasing their salaries and allowances.
Summary of Key Objectives:
Fundamental Objectives
Means Objectives
Objective 1: To provide food services in a cost-effective manner
Means Objective A: to reduce the cost of food provided by the restaurant
Means Objective B: to eliminate unnecessary cost incurred in the process of proving foods in the restaurant
Means Objective C: to train workers how to make foods in a more cost-effective manner
Objective 2: To improve the quality of customer service to enhance customers’ satisfaction
Means Objective A: to take the workers through a refresher training
Means Objective B: to employ more experienced staff to bring a pool of experience in the organization
Means Objective C: to offer staff monetary incentives to enhance their performance
Objective 3: Improving the quality of foods provided by the restaurant
Means Objective A: to employ more experienced staff to bring a pool of experience in the organization
Means Objective B: to take the workers through a refresher training
Means Objective C: to offer staff monetary or non-monetary incentives to enhance their performance
Alternatives
Description of Alternatives:
Alternative
Description of Alternatives
Alternative 1
The first alternative is motivating workers by offering them monetary incentives. For a monetary incentive to motivate employees to improve their performance, it must have a meaning for them. Also, the amount of reward is very important in monetary rewards as it directly determines the extent to which it motivates the employees. According to Lawler (2000), the monetary incentive must be at least 5% of an employee’s annual salary for it to have substantial impact. He, however, adds that lesser monetary incentives can have substantial impact on the employee’s motivation if they are provided alongside other forms of appreciation.
Alternative 2
The second alternative is to offer employees non-monetary incentives. Pitfield (1980) posited non-monetary incentives as fringe benefits made available to staff and are regarded as an addition to wages and salaries. It consists of direct and indirect benefits. The direct benefit may include profit-sharing, sick pay, pension schemes, et cetera. The indirect benefits may include welfare amenities, social and recreational facilities, et cetera. Gellermen (1976) insisted that pay, if only it could be properly packaged, would somehow bring about the desired approach to work.
Alternative 3
The third alternative is offering foods at cost-effective ways so the customers can get it at more affordable prices. This involves cutting cost on all factors of production, including purchasing inputs from cheaper suppliers, eliminating unnecessary cost, purchasing goods in large quantities to enjoy quantity discounts, et cetera.
Selection
Offering employees non-monetary incentives is recommended. Since offering workers monetary incentives is likely to increase the cost of producing foods, while providing foods at cost-effective ways is not easily achievable without offering the workers some incentives, it is found that providing non-monetary incentives has the greatest results in achievement of the intended goals.
What’s more, the non-monetary incentives such as training and development in the organization have positive influences on employee performances and training; and this may also bring about reduction of cost as well increase in productivity. This report reveals that promotion of employees, among other non-monetary incentives, will increase their efforts and performances in work place, while employee performance appraisal influences employees’ performance and employee welfare. Others like medical facilities will also facilitate effective performances. It will be very critical to find out the information on the circumstances under which employees would prefer monetary incentives to non-monetary incentives, in order to decide how to reduce the extent of potential tradeoffs………………………………………………………………..
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