Mario's Pizza Pan Inc Recovery Strategy

Mario's Pan Pizza $($MPP Inc.$)$ is a local chain $(40$ stores$)$ of eat$-$in and home delivery

pizza stores. Recently MPP has lost $25$ percent of sales revenue due mostly to a drop in

their home delivery business. They attribute this solely to their major competitor who

recently promoted a program that guarantees $30$ minute delivery service from order entry

to home delivery of pre$-$baked product while MPP Inc. advertises one$-$hour delivery.

MPP Inc. currently uses computers for in$-$store operations and the usual business

functions, but otherwise is not heavily dependent upon software systems to help them

receive, process, and home deliver their customers' orders.

Chef Pepe, their Supervisor of Computer Operations, has been charged with developing a

software application to identify $$pizza factory$$ locations and create the software system

needed to operate them. In commissioning this project, Maria, their president, said to pull

out all the stops. She further stated that the future of MPP Inc. depends on this project.

She wants the team to investigate an option to deliver the pizza unbaked and $$ready for

the oven$$ in $15$ minutes or less $/$ or deliver it pre$-$baked in $30$ minutes or less.

These mobile pizza factories would not have any retail space. Their only function will be

to receive orders, prepare, and deliver the pizzas. The factory location nearest the

customer's location will receive the order from a central ordering facility, process, and

deliver the order within $15$ or $45$ minutes of order entry depending on whether the

customer orders their pizza ready for the oven or already baked. There are six software

applications that Chef Pepe has identified for the solution.

Pizza Factory Locator Subsystem

The first is a software subsystem to find pizza factory locations. It is not known how

many such factories will be needed nor where they should be located. The software

subsystem will have to determine that. Clearly this subsystem is a very complex

application. The goal can be clearly defined, but even at that the solution will not be at all

obvious. This subsystem will have to use a very sophisticated modeling tool to measure

demographics and point out optimal locations and times. The requirements, functionality,

and features are not at all obvious. Some of the solution can probably be envisioned, but

clearly the whole solution is elusive at this early stage. Exactly how to model this to the

most efficient outcome is not known at the outset. It will have to be discovered as the

development project is underway.

Order Entry Subsystem

The second is an order entry subsystem to support store and factory operations.

Telephone orders will come to a single location, be taken there and then routed to the

appropriate store or factory electronically. This system focuses on routine business

functions and should be easily defined. Off the shelf commercial software may be a big

part of the final solution to support store and factory operations. This subsystem can

utilize COTS $($commercial off the shelf$)$ order entry software.