Aroha needs a way to deal with changing customer demand while keeping her costs down. She decides to ask a friend to sit behind the counter at lunchtime (12 noon to 2pm) and look at a range of input and output measures of capacity.
The friend records:
- number of seats in the café
- time customers wait to order
- time customers wait at their table for their meal to arrive
- time customers take to eat their meals and leave
- time to make each type of meal
- total number of customers served between 12 noon and 2pm.
Aroha and her friend then analyse the results. They look at the big picture and the detail, and average times as well as peak times.
The results show that customers are waiting too long to order because only Aroha is behind the counter to serve. Aroha knew this already, but the rest of the results tell her things she hadn’t realised.
Customers are also waiting too long at their tables because some meals take a long time to prepare. This means that tables stay full for longer, meaning some potential customers go to the café next door instead.
The quickest meals to prepare are bagels. The ‘big brunch’ takes the longest to prepare.
Aroha figures she could sell more lunches between 12 noon and 2pm if she had more staff, but also if meals took less time to prepare, or if more customers chose bagels over the big brunch.