...Café D. Pownd Case Study Introduction Café D. Pownd is newly opened residence cafeteria in the Cambridge Hall, which was opened from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, Monday to Friday. It serves 550 residents from both Cambridge Hall and Nottingham Hall by providing hot meals, beverages, salads, desserts, snacks and sandwiches. Its peak hours are 5pm to 6:30 pm everyday which makes the heaviest crowds. The majority of the customers paid with campus-wide electronic payment system. Problem Statement Customers are complaining about the waiting time is too long. This could a threat to the cafeteria because if they could not successfully decrease the waiting time, customers would switch to other alternatives. Another critical consideration to this case is that they don’t have large space for the cafeteria. This is the reason why there is congestion during the peak hours. In order to solve this problem, the assistant residence manager, Jason Mah, needs to collect and analyze information and find an effective solution. Analysis (Quantitative) According to Mah, the average waiting time for each line is: 1. Line 1=5 minutes 2. Line 2=10 minutes 3. Line 3= 1minute The precooked and interactive customer base ratio is 2:1 that precooked is more attractive than interactive. The product margin in precooked is higher than interactive meal. Moving customers will increase profits. According to the spreadsheet we can know, the standard deviation of entrance time of arrival is 3.91...
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...the cafeteria to get his meal, you will have enough time to finish dinner before he returns.” Mah was aware of the situation and already had started to investigate in order to propose some improvements to the residence management. Mah hoped that some minor adjustments requiring no major investments or disbursements would be sufficient to resolve the situation. CAFÉ D. POWND The “Café D. Pownd” was a newly established cafeteria at the equally new Cambridge Hall residence that had opened in September, at the National Academy of Liberal Arts (NALA). The cafeteria served as a popular eating place for the 450 residents of Cambridge Hall, as well as for approximately 100 residents from Nottingham Hall, another residence located across the street. This cafeteria was open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and was closed weekends and holidays. It offered a wide variety of hot meals, beverages, salads, desserts, snacks and sandwiches. The majority of residents paid for their food purchases with their student cards through an electronic payment system established campus-wide. Although the Café D. Pownd was newly established, there was overwhelming evidence suggesting major problems with the length of waiting times for service at the cafeteria. In short, the cafeteria layout appeared extremely inefficient during the peak period of service (between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.) during which approximately two-thirds of the...
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...Table of Contents Café D. Pownd..................................................................................................................................5 S w 9B00D007 CAFÉ D. POWND Victor Siu, Chris K. Anderson and Stéphane Vachon prepared this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Ivey Management Services prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmittal without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Management Services, c/o Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; e-mail cases@ivey.uwo.ca. Copyright © 2000, Ivey Management Services Version: (A) 2010-01-08 One late afternoon at the end of October, Jason Mah, assistant residence manager at Cambridge Hall, was sitting at the residence cafeteria waiting for his friend to join him for dinner. His friend, unfortunately, had arrived in the middle of the “rush” period at the cafeteria, and faced a potentially long wait in the cafeteria line. As a student would put it: “It is a...
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