Resumen:
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[EN] The growing economy in the United States and across the world has birthed
a fast pace life for millions of people. In response, fast‐food chains are working
vigorously to meet the demand of consumers. Fast‐food ...[+]
[EN] The growing economy in the United States and across the world has birthed
a fast pace life for millions of people. In response, fast‐food chains are working
vigorously to meet the demand of consumers. Fast‐food industries are hiring
engineers to design good quality food and faster service. Among these industries
is Dunkin Donuts company.
Currently Dunkin Donuts is growing popularity worldwide. They supply fast
food at an affordable price. Although there is a large demand, Dunkin Donuts
could be declining due to other competitors. Moreover, some of its stores are
unable to match the service and quality of other fast‐food places. In an effort to
remain highly profitable, Dunkin Donuts is working with researchers to improve
store conditions.
In this project, we seek to identify problems with service, products and
facility layout. In this way, we have found three main problems where we have
focused:
First, in the first visit to the store we were surprised for the large quantity of
donuts, approximately 30%, that the store through away everyday attending to its
business policy, it means, the store has to throw out the unsold donuts at the end
of the day. For this reason, the first goal for us was to reduce this percentage as
much as possible.
To tackle this problem, we assume that donuts are a perishable product. For
this reason, it can be compared with the Newsvendor Problem which is the basis
on which we have relied. Thank to this methodology we achieve a reduction of
10% in quantity of donuts thrown away.
The second problem which has been observed is the time that customers
have to wait in the line depending on the time of the day. To solve this problem
the team was focused on which the most common ordered products are, arriving
to the conclusion that donuts and coffee are these ones.
Through a time study of the service time for the different kind of products,
the team arrived to the conclusion that the possibility of a priority line for donuts
and coffee would be a good idea. This idea has been studied by a simulation in the
Arena Software comparing the current system with the proposed one.
The conclusion to this study is that, in general, with the proposed system
the waiting time of the customer is almost the 50% than in the current system.
The third and last problem observed are the inefficiencies in the layout of
the store which affects to customers and employees. Furthermore, due to the
changes proposed to the second problem observed (the priority line system), it is
necessary that the store’s layout changes so a new store’s layout has been studied
in this part of the project.
To face these problems, different tasks are studied through a MOST analysis
which breaks down these tasks into individual motion elements. In this way, it is
easier to see how the tasks can be improved. Following this methodology the
team has got a new layout which reduces the movements of the employees, and it
has also proposed new equipment which improves the service time of different
tasks.
In conclusion, these problems discussed about the weakness in this store
can be reflected in the customers and even employees satisfaction supposing an
important cost for the store. The solutions proposed in this project will contribute
to reduce the costs of the store, it means, they will improve the store in terms of
effectiveness and efficiency
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