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A collaborative application of design thinking and Taguchi approach in restaurant service design for food wellbeing

G. Rejikumar (Department of Management, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi, India)
Asokan-Ajitha Aswathy (Indian Institute of Management Amritsar, Amritsar, India)
Ajay Jose (Department of Professional Studies, Christ University, Bangalore, India)
Mathew Sonia (School of Business and Management, Christ University, Bangalore, India)

Journal of Service Theory and Practice

ISSN: 2055-6225

Article publication date: 5 October 2021

Issue publication date: 9 March 2022

1387

Abstract

Purpose

Innovative restaurant service designs impart food wellbeing to diners. This research comprehends customer aspirations and concerns in a restaurant-dining experience to develop a service design that enhances the dining experience using the design thinking approach and evaluates its efficiency using the Taguchi method of robust design.

Design/methodology/approach

The sequential incidence technique defines diners' needs, which, followed by brainstorming sessions, helped create multiple service designs with important attributes. Prototype narration, as a scenario, acted as the stimulus for evaluators to respond to the WHO-5 wellbeing index scale. Scenario-based Taguchi experiment with nine foodservice attributes in two levels and the wellbeing score as the response variable helped identify levels of critical factors that develop better FWB.

Findings

The study identified the best combination of factors and their preferred levels to maximize FWB in a restaurant. Food serving hygiene, followed by information about cuisine specification, and food movement in the restaurant, were important to FWB. The experiment revealed that hygiene perceptions are critical to FWB, and service designs have a significant role in it. Consumers prefer detailed information about the ingredients and recipe of the food they eat; being confident that there will be no unacceptable ingredients added to the food inspires their FWB.

Research limitations/implications

Theoretically, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on design thinking and transformative service research, especially in the food industry.

Practical implications

This paper details a simple method to identify and evaluate important factors that optimize FWB in a restaurant. The proposed methodology will help service designers and technology experts devise settings that consider customer priorities and contribute to their experience.

Originality/value

This study helps to understand the application of design thinking and the Taguchi approach for creating robust service designs that optimize FWB.

Keywords

Citation

Rejikumar, G., Aswathy, A.-A., Jose, A. and Sonia, M. (2022), "A collaborative application of design thinking and Taguchi approach in restaurant service design for food wellbeing", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 199-231. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-12-2020-0284

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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