Simulation Helps Local Restaurant Reconfigure Operations

Discrete-event process simulation now has a long and praiseworthy history of providing a path to higher productivity and efficiency to a variety of enterprises – the history thereof begins with manufacturing – now extending to warehousing operations, transportation hubs, service industries, retail stores, and health-care operations such as hospitals, clinics, dentists’ offices, and pharmacies. Use of the analytical techniques of simulation, in tight conjunction with statistical analysis methods applied to both input data and outputs from the simulation model, empowers engineers, process experts, and managers to experiment on a computer model of a system, evaluating various proposed improvements or adaptations to changing conditions quickly, economically, and (very significantly) without disruption to the current system during the analysis. In this paper, we present the application of discrete-event simulation to the study and improvement of a small, independently owned restaurant. Challenges presented to and successfully addressed by this simulation study include effects of seasonal variation and the imperative to increase customer-service capacity quickly and at minimal expense.