Questions
1. Each guest table takes approximately 15 minutes of a waiter’s time. The waiter works with 75 percent staff-time efficiency (i.e., 25 percent allowance factor). Customers spend an average of 85 minutes in the restaurant. How many tables can a waiter be assigned to?
2. The forecast for the number of new tables (guest groups) on a specific day during every half hour from noon to 3 p.m. is 8, 13, 28, 31, 14, and II. Assuming each table stays 1.5 hours and we assign one waiter to 5 tables, how many waiters would Browns need every half-hour between noon and 3 p.m. period?
3. Suppose that tire hourly number of waiters needed on a specific day from noon to midnight is 5, 15, 15,6, i, 3, 9, II, 12, 13, 9, and 6. Determine four-hour shifts to cover these needs with minimum waiter numbers. Hint: Start with noon and use the minimum number of waiters required, still not met, at the start of each shift. However, the last shift should employ tire number of waiters required, still not met, during any hour of that shift.
Bass PLC, the owner of the Browns Restaurants, a high- end chain in England, was concerned that the restaurants were not achieving their full potential for service speed and efficiency. A consulting team was brought in to look at the operations of one of the restaurants and improve them. The following activities were undertaken:
1. Identify the components of the restaurant production and service-delivery system:
2. M ea sure the capacity requirements of each component using rime study;
3, Measure the historical demand for each component by hour and day of week;
4. Calculate ideal capacity-use levels by factoring steps 2 and 3;
5. Compare current usage with ideal capacity-use levels, determine reasons for the variance, and improve the system.

Table 1

Table 2