University of Notre Dame
April 22, 1997
Food Services Benchmarking - General Outline

In order to benchmark our operations, Food Services realizes we must first understand the Mission of the University of Notre Dame. We can then begin to understand our own mission and how we envision ourselves within the larger entity. Our diverse University culture demands a focus on values. To establish metric measurement without first refining our understanding of those needs and values would make statistical measurement illogical and therefore, unsupportable.

Before any comparative statistics and sources for benchmarking are established, Food Services will identify the programs, systems, and processes that are necessary for us to successfully meet the needs of our stakeholders.

We will break our task of benchmarking down into four steps:

Step One - Clarify how Food Services' mission and vision fits within the mission of the University.

Review the mandates and issues established in the strategic planning process and regain commitment from the Food Service staff to the common goals and objectives that will allow us to attain greater achievement in these areas. Using the various tools and text available to us from professional and member organizations we will focus on professional standards references.

Step Two - Form teams within areas of Food Services that have common interests. Identify how we have reacted to the changing needs of our customers and guests.

Identify theoretical models based upon the needs and values of the campus community. Examine the processes that are critical for attaining satisfaction of stakeholders.

Step 3 - Establish benchmarking criteria and collect data.

Based upon the critical processes outlined by the teams, clearly define performance indicators. A template shall be formed for each team to use for data collection. The template will allow for uniform internal and external data collection that can be merged into a master document for the department. Where possible we will try to quantify the performance indicators into metric form to allow for an objective comparison.

Identification of other universities and related industry leaders will allow us to form the basis from which we can draw comparisons. Rather than attempt to find an institution that is the ideal model, we will pick organizations that have a reputation as a leader in a broad sense of the term and then narrow our focus on processes that they may do well that are relevant to Notre Dame.

We can then compare our operations and processes with theirs, juxtaposed to the industry standards. To try to focus solely on the comparative institution based upon reputation, rather than focus on the individual performance indicator that we have established for our unique environment, will not allow us to expanded our vision of our department. Also we realize that the comparison to these reputable institutions will allow us to identify ideas and practices elsewhere that are worth considering for our operations.

Step Four - Analyze data and formulate major goals that will allow us to become more like the model.

After collecting information teams can evaluate and quantify the relevance of the data to our operations. A determination will need to be made regarding how we react to the information. This information becomes critical to our ongoing business planning within each of our operations.

We also realize that benchmarking is an "ongoing process." Because of this we will continue to revisit the goals and modify them to best meet the needs of the Notre Dame community.

Thanks to Jim Herter for this submission.