Calvin Carpenter 3/1/13

HT 362

Case Study

When Life Hands You Lemons … Better Check the Specs

1. There are a lot of control practices Sue should have done to prevent the high produce cost. First she should have gone in the storeroom and physically took the inventory this would have solved her issue of not ordering enough lemons and lettuce as well as ordering too much kiwis. Sue should also have a better line of communication with the chef Adrian, so he can inform her on what they might need to order more of on a weekly basis. The general manager should sign off on all the orders, so there are two eyes looking at the purchase order to prevent high produce costs.

Calvin Carpenter 3/1/13

HT 362

2. The chef was right about voices his concerns, but he did it at the wrong time. If there had

been problems with the order weeks before he should have brought them up with Sue before it kept happening. The chef also through Sue under the bus bringing up all the problems with the order in front of the general manager. He should have told Sue the issues he was having before the problem got this bad. The chef thought he got shipped the wrong type of lemons because they were smaller than usually, so he just sent them back and didn’t even bother to tell Sue until the general manager and Sue were having a meeting about the issues.

Calvin Carpenter 3/1/13

HT 362

3. In the future Sue could delegate her inventory duties to one of the kitchen staff members. For example have someone take inventory every Friday before she receives the call from Pierson’s Produce this way she has a physical up to date inventory list to make sure they order what they need. Sue could also research other sources for purchasing produce besides the vendor they always use. For example purchase local produce, which will help the support the community as well as bring down shipping costs.

Calvin Carpenter 3/1/13

HT 362