Pizza Store Layout Simulation Essay

When our group first started planning our strategy to win the second Littlefield simulation game, it was evident that the goal of the game was to maximize profits. We were competing against 18 other teams, but we knew with correct system capacity management and correct inventory management we could be the number one team. Even though we made correct decisions overall, we ended up in second place again with a cash balance of $2,660,393 and remaining inventory of 52 kits. Although we were a little disappointed again, we were very satisfied with what we have learned and the important operations management concepts we used such as capacity management and lead-time and inventory management throughout both of the Littlefield simulation games.

The purpose of this paper is assessing my strategy and decisions in the simulation Biz Café. Then, I will give my results and explain how I got there. However, there were many factors involved creating these results. In this simulation, everything was left up to me to decide how to run my new coffee shop. There were big decisions at the beginning you had to make to create the overall theme of your business. Then, I was to hire employees, buy goods, and act on specials decisions or react to good or bad customer reactions. This, I will explain more in the following paragraphs.

Our team operated and managed the Littlefield Technologies facility over the span of 1268 simulated days. Our team finished the simulation in 3rd place, posting $2,234,639 in cash at the end of the game. We did intuitive analysis initially and came up the strategy at the beginning of the game. And then we applied the knowledge we learned in the class, did process analysis and modified our strategies according to the performance results dynamically. We have reinforced many of the concepts and lessons learned in class and had a better understanding of the operation of the Littlefield Technologies facility and how certain modifications would affect the throughput and lead time.

This paper will cover a reflection of my experience with the Biz Café simulation. After reading this paper, one should have an idea of what I learned from the simulation and how it works. I will be talking about the challenges my team and I dealt with and how we overcame these challenges. Most importantly, I will be talking about how we made Coffee Connection run as a successful coffee shop. In this paper, I will also discuss my thoughts on teamwork and the significant factors of running a small business.

This paper provides a summary of our analysis of the data obtained for 60 Crusty Dough Pizza Company restaurants. We compared 16 pizza store characteristics to monthly profit in order to determine the best indicators of success. The results of this analysis may be used to determine the store services and attributes that have the most bearing on profitably.

The first challenge was to determine whether or not batching dining room customer was beneficial. Batching means that the parties must reach a number of eight before they are seated. Two scenarios from the simulation show that batching is a better strategy that helped to increase profit. Utilization of the restaurant capacity is largest while batching. We could place 8 people at single table rather than placing group of 5 at one and 3 at another. The number of customers that can be served at one time highly influences the profit. According to the simulation it is more beneficial to use batching as average profit is $83.64 compared to average profit of -$282.29 when not batched. By using batching benihana restaurants are able to eliminate bottleneck that occurs in the waiting area/bar. By doing so they are able to see more customers in their restaurants which can be seen in the graphs to the right. They lose fewer customers and more diners are served.

There are several problems facing Jason Mah and Café D Pownd. One serious problem, which arose from lack of space, was the confusion building in the queues since people had no idea which line they were in. There were times when people had been lining up in the interactive cooking line for several minutes when they actually wanted to be in the pre-cooked line. Another problem was the long lines tended to create a wall of people in front of the soft drink machines, becoming burdensome even with as few as 20 people waiting for service. In order for people to get drinks, they had to barge through a line of people. Usually this confusion caused spills and was annoying for

I believe that this simulation was a great tool in helping us as MBA candidates to see just how companies succeed and/or fail to achieve their growth targets in revenue and profitability. However, an organization heightens the probability of achieving profitable growth whenever it has a clear expansion strategy and a strong execution infrastructure. One without the other impairs the probability of success. I conclude that there are two main reasons for such: 1) inadequate consideration of opportunities within the core business, adjacent to the core business or within new customer sub-segments; 2) an organizational infrastructure that cannot support successful execution.

Nevertheless, the majority of customers are very satisfied with the amount of serving along with the quality of their meal as well as the price paid. The strategy of being a low priced high value added has seen problems due to lack of customers which is affecting the bottom line drastically. This inevitable circumstance has put a hold on operations and started an investigation upon various neighboring competitors and their own strategies.

Also, teething problems with marketing, operations etc might not lead to optimum sales. Therefore, we will project only 60% of this figure as first year sales and use the estimated figure as the sales figure for Year 2. Over the planning period, starting from Year 2 onwards, sales are expected to grow at a rate of 3.9% every year, in line with industry estimates of the average growth of the restaurant industry in the US (Source: Mintel International, cited in section 6.0).

The strategy I chose for the simulation is “Niche Cost Leader." First, with the key focus being value, this strategy will challenge me to keep costs at a minimum and force me to streamline overall costs to produce a valuable commodity that, in turn, will generate financial success that can be shared with internal and external stakeholders. Second, as the success of this strategy primarily relies on the existing product line being prosperous, I will be able to practice and hone my forecasting skills based on one product. Though I eventually will produce more than one product, most of the simulation will be conducting under making the primary product as successful as it can be, and reliable forecasts are

“Hi, welcome to CiCi’s!” This is the warm greeting that every CiCi’s employee will welcome every customer with when they walk through the door. This warm welcome is just one of the many things that CiCi’s does to exceed the customer service expectations that come with a buffet style restaurant. With competition lurking, and the economy pinching, great customer service has become a premium. This is why CiCi’s focuses so much on the customer’s wants and needs. The mission statement

For my project, I ran Coffee-Roma, a coffee shop located in the business district of a large city. My simulation ran for 60 days. Over this timeframe, I hired 7 employees and earned gross revenues of $89,984.20. From those revenues, my net profit totaled $14,046.83. Below are the details of how I attempted to best run my business.

The average turn from the time customers receive their food to the time they exit the restaurant, is 32 minutes. Additionally, it appears that even the experienced staff has difficulties in serving the customers as the demand exceeds labor utilized creating queues on the weekends of up to 25 minutes.

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