Organizations as Open Systems - China Star Chinese Restaurant.

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MBA

Paper I

Organizations as Open Systems

09/21/03

Organization: China Star Chinese Restaurant

Address: 1880 Michael Fairday Dr. Reston VA. 20190

Phone:     703-435-8666

Relationship: worked as an order taker five years ago. Responsibilities included taking and packing the orders, end-of-the-day bookkeeping.

Introduction

China Star is a fifteen-year old, mid-size Chinese restaurant serves common Chinese dishes. It has a dinning area, and a smaller bar/administrative area that has a back door where customers come to pick up their telephone orders. The staffs include the owner/manager, an order taker, a waiter, two busboy/girl, four chefs, two part-time delivery drivers, and one cleaner.

The restaurant is in an excellent location: very close to the Reston Town Center, surrounded by numerous high-tech companies and rich residents, but has been carrying its flat revenue for the past decade. It opens seven days a week, yet its most profit comes from the $5 range lunch combination during weekdays and carryout dinner orders. The dine-in dinner business had slowed down after several years of its opening, the average table that the waiter serves each night is about five. Carryout orders constitute about one half of the restaurant’s total sales. Its customer base has shrunk into office workers and residents within several miles.

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Analysis

        As an open system organization, China Star’s inputs are the workers, the raw food, and the facilities. Enough workers, the skill of the workers, the quality of the raw material, and the states of the facilities are all important in producing the satisfying output---fresh, delicious food and excellent service. But China Star was far from inputting enough:

  1. The skills of the chefs were just so-so, and it always had only one waiter. During the busy lunch hours, all the customers came at once; it was impossible for the waiter to take care of each table well and ...

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