Analysis of Factors Influencing on Food Supplier Selection Criteria in the Health-care Foodservice Operations

The purposes of this study were to find factor which influence on the selection criteria of food supplier. Questionnaire were distributed to 52 general hospitals with more than 400 beds located in Seoul and Kyongin province, and responded questionnaires were collected from 44 dietetic departments (84.6%) and 18 purchasing departments (34.6%). The main results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) supplier selection criteria include quality, service, cost and supplier competency. (2) With having been met with tight competition and market opening, hospitals plan a strategy to improve quality, service and they tend to have more interest in various supplier selection criteria. (3) Purchasing departments estimate more highly the rate of reflection in considering supplier selection criteria than the rate of importance about cost criteria, which reveals that purchasing departments sensitively respond to cost cutdown. (4) When selecting suppliers, a significant(p<.01) influence of stability of supplier industry environment on the selecting criteria such as the importances of quality, service, and supplier quality are recognized only after recognizing the stability of food delivery industry. Food supplier industry secures stability more quickly through major companies' participation in food distribution industry and this will reveal the importance of supplier selection criteria. (5) Suppliers which are selected by the quality criteria, service criteria, supplier quality criteria make efforts to communicate with foodservice departments, to give more proper information about substitute food, new product, and to make commitments, while suppliers which are decided by cost criteria do not establish supportive relationships with foodservice departments.

Operational Assessment of Foodservice Information Systems in Hospital Foodservice Operations

Foodservice information systems management practices were assessed in hospital foodservice operations. A total of 46 dietetic departments were responded for the study and their practices of foodservice information systems were analyzed. The respondents were questioned about general characteristics of respondents as well as hospital foodservices implementation status of information systems. Statistical data analysis was completed using the SPSS package program for descriptive analysis, factor analysis, t-test and ANOVA test. 43.2% of total respondents gained informations by benchmarking of other hospital foodservice operations, but 7.8% gained through career education. They expected the enhanced efficiency of their tasks through implementing information systems. Based on factor analysis, information systems were divided into 6 management areas such as database management, meal management, nutrition management, purchasing management, production management and foodservice management. The average implementing scores were : database management 3.77, meal management 3.26, nutrition management 3.52, purchasing management 3.26, production management 2.73 and foodservice management 3.70 (score 1 indicates very poor and score 5 is very good). Among database management areas, standard recipe database and food item specifications database build-up scores(3.91) were relatively very high, but meal assessment and foodservice management reporting scores(2.43) were very low. The results suggest that it is necessary to build up automated foodservice management reporting system for the improvement of efficiency and productivity of operational tasks.