Table of Contents

1 Introduction..................................................................................................................................2

2 Body................................................................................................................................................. 2

2.1 Organization context.........................................................................................................2

2.1.1 Overview........................................................................................................................2

2.1.2 Pho24’s operational process.................................................................................3

2.2 Literature review............................................................................................................... 6

2.2.1 Concepts.........................................................................................................................7

2.2.2 Framework and application..................................................................................8

2.2.3 The appropriate framework for improving Pho24 quality....................12

2.2.4 Operational benefits and Quality management for the next 5 years. 13

2.3 Managing quality: a case study of Pho 24..............................................................14

2.3.1 Applying the concept.............................................................................................14

2.3.2 TQM framework implementation: challenges need to be overcome. 16

3 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................. 16

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1 Introduction

Nowadays, with the rapid opening of many businesses all over the world, the
competition between organizations become more and more fierce. One of the key
factors that create competitive advantages for these businesses is their quality so
total quality management (TQM) becomes more and more the popular phrase in
business context.

Pho24 is well known in Vietnamese market as the first mover who opens numerous
of Pho restaurant in Vietnam. Their restaurant that mainly served Vietnamese
traditional noodle now they have their restaurant opened not only in many cities in
Vietnam but also in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia and America. There is the
fact to manage the quality of these restaurant in different business context is their
challenges for the upcoming period.

This paper aims to analysis the concepts, application and framework of total quality
management and specially illustrate these idea by the case study of Pho24, a
restaurant chain.

2 Body
2.1 Organization context
2.1.1Overview

Pho24 restaurant chain belongs to Nam An Group, the biggest F&B Corporation in
Vietnam. Opening the first restaurant in 2003, Pho24 achieved many successful on
the way to building their brand and also expand their business rapidly by opening
more than fifty restaurants in Vietnam and five overseas. In Vietnam, Pho is the most
favourite traditional food however; it is usually seen as a street food with no

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guarantee in the quality. Pho 24 was open to serve Pho with high standard and
service but still reserve the traditional value. (pho24.com.vn, 2009)

The price of Pho 24 is much more expensive than the street restaurant; furthermore
the income of Vietnamese is low in general so their main customers are the middle
to high class or offices employees. Besides, they also aim to introduce Pho to foreign
tourists.

Pho24 definitely the market leader while they are both have the Order-qualifiers and
the Order-winners. With the order-qualifiers they are have the dish tasty, keep the
traditional recipes of Pho so the taste are as good as old-traditional Pho restaurant.
In term of Order-winners, they provide the Pho with high standard services that
includes staffs, facilities and accommodations enhancing with tradition tasted and
value. They also guarantee about their food safety, which are the problems of many
Pho street restaurants. Besides that, the brand is well-known and they add more
value for the population traditional food like Pho.

2.1.2Pho24’s operational process

The main operational process of Pho 24 could be described in figure 1 with steps and
detail. The main operational process of Pho24 is the welcome, taking order, making
and serving the dish. This process will begin when the guest go inside the restaurant
and finish when they make payment and go out. These services -delivering process
includes many stages which also take many times for processing and delay which is
described clearly in figure 1. The quality of foods and services are depending on this
main process and each of these stages will affects customer experiences as the
whole. Thus, this main process evolve the contribution of many staffs and need the
supporting of others process in the restaurant. This paper also mention about four
supporting process which will show in figure 2.

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Figure 1: Pho’s 24 Restaurant main process

(Sources: Southern, 1999)

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 Capacity and Training
scheduling
management

Main process:

Services
delivering

Customer Purchasing
relationship
And Inventory
management

Figure 2: 4 supporting process for Pho 24 main process.

 Capacity and scheduling management

The idea of capacity and scheduling management is the operation processes which
help the manager make sure that the capability or the resources for example staff,
table or kitchen could meet the need of customer’s level. The capacity management
aims to deal with this variation as cost effectively as possible (Namkung, 2008). For
example, the resources requirement for peak time of Pho24 is in breakfast so they
need to adjust the capacity available to serve their customer and make the main
process flow smoothly.

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  Training management

Pho 24 restaurant is a services delivery in which the staffs could not be separately
with customers. One of the Order-winners of Pho 24 restaurant is serving traditional
food with high standard services so training is also one of the most important
processes. The staffs need to be standardized and understand the culture of the
company. They are required not only be trained about the skill like welcome, take
order, serving but also the attitude, ethics and perception toward the brand. All of
these need to be programmed and scheduled before the staff actual working.

 Customer relationship

Updating database, remind customer special events or promotion and give

customers offers or gifts and many more to manage the relationship with customers
in their specials day are what customer relationship management process need to
do. Keep in touch with customer helps Pho 24 investigate customer perception
toward their services as well .Thus, they could fix the problems, adjust their services
and diversify their food to meet the need of their customers.

 Purchasing And Inventory management

Purchasing and inventory is very important process in restaurants because the cost
of operation and the quality of the food are depends on this process (Barlow, 1997).
Hence, this process also needs to process and supervise carefully. The process
required the manager not only need to process through many of steps which involve
many stages for example selecting supplier, quality check of raw material, inventory
schedule and instruction, forecasting for purchase and many more.

2.2 Literature review

Quality products or services always the goals which every company desire to carry
for their customers in order to improve their competitive advantages as well as their
performance. However, it is not easy to manage and achieve that goal when even

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the term of quality and total quality management still one of the most augment topic
with various definition, concept and framework.

2.2.1Concepts
There are some different definition of quality which based on operation view and
customer view. According to Slack et al (2004), in term of operation’s view quality is
the consistent satisfy specific customer need by providing value based approach.
Garvin (1988) defined quality in five different ways: Transcendental, products based,
user based, manufacturer based and value based. He believed that each of people in
the organization defined quality differently depend on their perception. Conversely,
in term of customers, it is very difficult to define what quality is because each
customer has different personal value and perception. Thus, the word quality is
different with different customers. Illustrate quality with different perspective,
Crosby (1979) emphasis that with whomever, quality is conformance to requirement.
This definition seems the simplest and easiest to understand for the term of quality.

Understanding quality made it is easier to approach the idea of TQM. Well-known all
over the world like the revolution which helped Japan revise from their ash after
World War II, TQM is development with many individual philosophies (Plenert,
1996). Hence, there are three individual could be consider as a TQM guru. They are
Juran, Deming and Crosby, after that Garvin and Oakland gather and sum up all of
these discussions (Miller, 1996). In his book, Oakland (2003) pointed out that TQM is
what organization using to improve their effectiveness and flexible which evolve the
whole organization at every single person and level. What Oakland mention are more
illustrate about the organization situation while in another definition, Chase and
Aquilano (1992) concerned more about customers’ point of view. They defined TQM
is how to manage the organization to meet or exceed the customer important
dimension in term of product or services. Both of these ideas bring the complete
idea for TQM definitions.

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2.2.2Framework and application
Total Quality Management could not be applied in a short term , it need 2 or 3 years
to achieve tangible result (Fisher, 1995). Thus, It need a model or a framework to
follow. Thus, there are many ideas about the framework of TQM and how to apply
these ideas in to the particular organization. As same as its concepts, there are also
three stands out frameworks. They are Deming, Crosby and Juran frameworks which
are known as the early of TQM framework.
W. Edward Deming has a framework of 14 points which show on Appendix, part A
(page 20) provide the frame work improve the management of the organization. He
found the customer is the most important part in the concepts, he showed that the
company should reduce the cost by doing less waste, less re work and lower cost and
using cross functional team could be used to improve quality of products, services
and also reduce cost. His framework show the way for company how to be the
survivor and how to be competitive on the market (Reed et al, 2000).

Phil Crosby offered 14 steps to improvement (appendix part B, page 21) while Juran
develop ten steps to improve quality (appendix part C, page 22). All of three authors
point out that TQM framework needs to be concentrate in to two main items –
improving customer satisfaction and reducing the cost. Besides that, the organization
also needs to pay their attention in educating their employee about the quality
concept and train them how to use the quality tools and technique. Organization
culture needs to be built with all the individual need to think about quality how to
produce quality. Deming and Juran believe most quality problems are due to
management, not employees so its need to have the breakthrough and control
activities (appendix D, page 24) (Zhang, 1997).
All of these three framework has been generated and illustrated in Oakland Simple
framework which showed in figure 1, many public organization find this framework
are easy to apply and use in their case.

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Figure3: Simple framework of TQM
(Source: Oakland, 2003)
This framework show that Culture and communction play very important part in the
TQM. Nevertheless, the most important element is the commitment of every single
individual in the organization while Customer and supplier within their quality chain
play the heart role in this model (Oakland, 2003)
Go together with the development of many TQM framework, there are also many
quality award model which are well known as Japaness Deming prize, Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality award (figure 2) or European Quality Award by European
foundation for Quality management (figure 3). Each of these awards develope their
framework and could be used as a model for organization in diffrents situation and
help them in the way to quality approachment. In 1990s, These models are even
used not only for quality model but also as the frame work for quality frameworks as
well (Anjard, 1998).

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Figure 4: Malcolm Baldrige model
(Source: Badri, 2006)

Figure 5: EFQM model

(Source: Slack, 2009)

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After reviewing and base on the outcome of these models, Oakland (2003) introduce
his new framework which he considers it is the frame work of 21 st century. It is 4Ps
and 3Cs of TQM.

Figure 6: Oakland New frame work

(Source: Oakland, 2003)
This framework capture and gather all of the ideas of many early frame work, it
shows the important of 3Cs which are Culture, Communication and Commitment.
Futher more, in order to achived the goal it need to be includes 4Ps: People, Process,
Perfomance and planning.

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2.2.3The appropriate framework for improving Pho24
quality

This is the fact that the competitive in the market always is fierce and customers

have their power to choose and change. Hence, each organization always need to

refresh, improve and Pho24 is not an exception. Improvement quality of the services

is a desire of every managers and in term of restaurant the frame work should apply

is iso 9000: 2000. Iso 9000: 2000 is the standard that provides a set of standardized

requirements for a quality management system and it also provide a framework to

managing an organization processes (ISO, 2010) According to Tague (1994)

Implemeting ISO 9000:2000 not only make strong empower involvement but also

sucessful in customers focus. Futher more, this framework also standardize the

services, advoice the inconsistantcy in the services and also increase the interaction

between department.

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Figure 7: Model of a process-based quality management system

(Sources: Quality-factors cambridge uk, 2010)

It is also more simple for organization to use PDCA process which well-known as

operating principle of ISO's management system standards.

Figure 8: PDCA process

Sources:  Bateman (2002)

2.2.4Operational benefits and Quality management for the

next 5 years
Applying a quality management for the company will bring the organization many
benefits which both come from internal and external. For internal of the company, it
reduce the cost of the failure, increase the work orientation as well as employee
working enviroment and motivation and last but not least, improve the quality
management system. In term of external, the image of the company definitly
improve as well as the positive perception of customers toward the organization and
will limited the over-expectation of customers (WTO,2001)

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Bringing organization many benefits, so the future development of TQM to meet the
requirement of organization and rapid market change also is an issue which take the
anticipating of many manager and reserchers. In his resserch, Mc Adam (2004)
believe that Six sigma which requires committed and charismatic leadership to be
successful is a long term continuous improvement system. Figure 9 below will show
the authors predict for the future development of TQM .

Figure 9: The future of TQM

Sources (McAdam, 2004)

2.3 Managing quality: a case study of Pho 24

2.3.1Applying the concept
For years of operation the main proplem that affected the quality of Pho24 are: the
communication between staffs is not effective, employee do not see quality is their
responsibility. In addition sometimes, the quality of the services is not consistancy
and even there are some mistake the wrong services still giving for customer.

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This proplem could be solved by implementing Iso 9000 is the expectation, Pho 24
should do the Plan-Do-Check-Act to improve their TQM.

 Plan
Pho 24 need to identify what their customer need: it could be quicker
services, helpful staffs and consistancy quality of the food this steps could do
by survey their customer. Then set up their mission, vision and value and
objective for their TQM to improve the quality. In this process, the manager
need to make sure that the improvement of the quality is everybody
responsibility so it will increase the attitude of the employees in the process.
 Do
Choose the new process to improve the quality to implement for example
change the tranning management, change the capacity management and also
change the main service process by cutting delay time that make the process
save time and make customers more satisfied. Make sure the project need to
have enough resources like people, consultants, equipment and many more....

 Check
Check the result of the new process, review and analysis the outcome. This
steps help the manager could make sure that they are follow the right track
and check it operates god or not. Pho24 manager need to run the process to
find and fix the error of the process so they could fix it on time.
 Act
This step is continualy make improvement for the process. After the new
process get throgh they need to do the process for fluences and make it
become more and more value.

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2.3.2TQM framework implementation: challenges need to be
overcome
According to Graham (1992), The worker in the manufacturing he produce the visible
product , in services the staff are not aware what they are produce and they could
not manage all the outcome the same quality. So one of the most challenging of
Pho24 when they applied the process is their staffs. The perception of ethic working
in Vietnam is not high , in addition the income of the labor is low. Thus, the
employees for Pho24 have high turnover staffs so they will meet the diffculty in
trainning and keeping their staff . Hence, the quality and the consistancy of the
services become more and more difficult to manage.

Besides that, One more challenge is the envolve of customer apperance in the
process make the quality of the services are more difficult to predict and manage.

3 Conclusion
TQM has appeared for many years ago, there are also many gurus with different
concepts, frameworks but they have the same goal that is improving the
performance of the organization based on quality improvement. Had applied and
tested through many organization real situation, TQM become one of the most
important part of organizations operation management. However, the rapid change
of the market, the exist challenges makes this process need to improve to catch up
with the situation. The future is unpredictable but when the manager are prepared
and acknowlegdment by doing TQM proactive not reactive so it be come easier.

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I. Appendix
A. Deming ‘s 14 point Plan for TQM
(Source: 1000 advices)

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 B. Cosby 14 steps
(Sources: Oarkland, 2003, p.19)

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 C. Juran’s ten steps to quality improvement
(Sources: Oarkland, 2003, p.19)

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 D. “Breakthrough” activities Juran and Gryna

(Sources Zhang, 1997)

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