CenareGroup #6

Braden Cedeno, John Cox, Grant Jolly, Alex Laric, Kevin Marshall, Keri Stavinoha

Background/Process Issues • Small, family owned Italian restaurant

• Based out of College Station

• Firsthand knowledge: group member is a server

Process Issues:

• Poor queue management

• Lack of communication to customers

• Lack of organization

• Overutilization of servers

Objective

• Qualitative Goals

• Centralize organization of seating by hiring a host/hostess

• Distribute server workload evenly

• Sectionalized seating

• Improve customer service

• Quantitative Goals

• Decrease non-value added time

• Reduce wait time, throughput time, balking, reneging

• Increase throughput rate

Process Analysis

• Recorded time trials of each activity in process

• Observed queue during peak demand times

• Received additional data from our sponsor

• Process times, balking, and reneging rates

● Employee confusion● Lack of service upon arrival

Process Improvements

• Addition of host/hostess

• Table assignments are centralized

• Better queue management

• Addition of busser

• Server is released earlier in process

• Server is utilized less

● Inform customers● Employees out of sight● Multiple customers at once, less errors

Extend Model

Validation & Verification

• Verification• Incremental building technique

• Removed variability to make the model deterministic

• Ran model multiple times to ensure same results were obtained

• Validation• Historical data from current server

• Triangular distribution

• Parameters of model emulate restaurant

Statistic Minimum Maximum Average

Balk 0 units 7 units 1.14 units

Renege 0 units 20 units 5.46 units

Throughput 35 units 49 units 40.94 units

Throughput Time 57 minutes 148 minutes 98 minutes

Time Between Items < 1 minute 27 minutes 6.5 minutes

Statistic Minimum Maximum Average

Balk 0 units 4 units 0.54 units

Renege 0 units 16 units 2.74 units

Throughput 36 units 48 units 43.36 units

Throughput Time 54 minutes 109 minutes 80 minutes

Time Between Items < 1 minute 26.8 minutes 5.9 minutes

Old Process

New Process

Simulation Results

Recommendations

• Improve queue management:

• Hire a host/hostess as needed

• Balance the workflow:

• Hire two bussers as needed

• Centralize table allocations

• Emphasize customer interaction

• Inform customers of expected wait times

• Keep customers occupied and engaged

Closing Remarks

• Concerns• Trade off between customer service and labor cost

• Possible errors• How big is a party?

• Demand is cyclical

• Unpredictable variation (events, weather, etc.)

• Reservations?

• Credibility• First hand observations

• Member has tacit knowledge of process

• Quantifiable results

Thank You Questions ?