Darden Restaurants, the $5.2 billion owner of such popular brands as Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Seasons 52, and Bahama Breeze, serves more than 300 million meals annually in its 1,700 restaurants across the U.S. and Canada. Before any one of these meals is placed before a guest, the ingredients for each recipe must pass quality control inspections from the source, ranging from measurement and weighing, to tasting, touching, or lab testing. Darden has differentiated itself from its restaurant peers by developing the gold standard in continuous improvement.

Discussion Questions

1. How does Darden build quality into the supply chain?

2. Select two potential problems––one in the Darden supply chain and one in a restaurant––that can be analyzed with a fish-bone chart. Draw a complete chart to deal with each problem.

3. Darden applies SPC in many product attributes. Identify where these are probably used.

4. The SPC chart on page 256 illustrates Darden’s use of control charts to monitor the weight of salmon filets. Given these data, what conclusion do you, as a Darden quality control inspector, draw? What report do you issue to your supervisor? How do you respond to the salmon vendor?