The Great Wall restaurant is an extremely popular restaurant in southwest Kuala Lumpur. It is located in and is part of a 3-star hotel that borders the flowing Gombak River. The hotel itself is not very popular and its occupancy rarely exceeds 60 percent. The restaurant however is quite successful and has an average yearly turnover of RM1, 900,000 per annum. In fact, when the hotel’s occupancy is low it is the restaurant that supports the hotel.

The chef and the assistant chef manage the kitchen and the restaurant floor is managed by the Food and Beverage manager and the supervisory staff. In the kitchen, there is eighteen staff. On the floor, there is fifteen staff. The kitchen chef and his staff are most qualified and very experienced. The floor staffs on the other hand are mainly university students who are fresh out of university.

The restaurant seats 200 customers and is open six days a week except for Sundays. And it usually runs at full capacity. There is an invisible territorial division between the kitchen and the restaurant floor. The management realizes this and has sought ways to reduce that demarcation to allow for greater efficiency and cohesiveness of the kitchen as a whole.

Many new technological approaches were introduced since 2005 to try and make the operations seamless. The latest KEX system manages housekeeping assignments and logically prioritizes the restaurant’s orders, based on defined criteria, via an iPod Touch. Additionally, the information management system manages the orders and billing across the restaurant, bar, and reception.