Institute of Quality & Technology Management

University of the Punjab, Lahore.

B.Sc. Industrial Engineering and Management, 5th Semester (2017 – 2021)

Subject: WS & ME Activity: 02

Holden's Restaurant
Holden’s Restaurant had been popular for years. Generations of families enjoyed meals at
Holden’s. Many people in the community had also worked there. But today, Holden’s has a
problem. The past success has become a distant memory. Few people go to Holden’s now.

Suzanne Holden, granddaughter of the founder, is going to try to revive her family’s business. She
has begun to interview Holden staff and former customers to see what the problem is.

“I’ll tell you why I stopped going,” said Andy Davis. “The service was terrible. I’m always on the
go, and I don’t have time to wait for a meal.”

“Yes, time was a problem,” said Roberta Pastor, a Holden’s waitress. “We took too long. Our
equipment was terrible, and we never had enough wait staff. And I’ll tell you something else.
When you’re only paid minimum wage and you don’t get many tips, it makes it difficult to live.”

“I stopped going there because of the smell,” replied Jean Morelli. “In the morning you had the
retirees sitting in there for over three hours smoking cigarettes. It was disgusting. Cigarette
smoke combined with grease from breakfast left a nasty odor for lunch customers.”

Assistant Manager Scott Johnson said, “We didn’t run the restaurant very well. We insisted on
balancing the tables among our wait staff, but this meant that we wouldn’t let our customers
sit in their favorite location. People feel like they own this place, and they want to sit at their
own table. And another thing—we changed our prices too often. Every time a price would change
on something we bought, we’d change the price of everything. People got tired of the constant
price increases.”

Gretchen Moody, the restaurant’s long-time cook, was very angry. “For years your grandfather
and your mother let me buy my own food. But then when your mother got ill, the hot shot
manager you hired started buying garbage. He wouldn’t let me buy anything, and he wouldn’t
listen to me. The food tasted terrible.”

Suzanne had a lot of information, but she wasn’t sure where to begin.

Help the Suzanne to overcome these problems with the help of Fishbone Diagram to see the big
picture of the Holden’s Restaurant. You can assume some factors that seem obvious or most
probable.