Modelling and Simulation of a State University Cafeteria: A Case Study

Abstract

With the current shift toward a service prominent economy, there exists a necessity in continuous improvements of service provision. Hospitality services have emerged as a foremost service under these circumstances. A university cafeteria is among the most time intensive services within a university premise. The tight schedules of the students and the staff influence the rushed atmosphere at the cafeterias that leads to customer dissatisfaction and brand switching. The study identified the congession at a hostel cafeteria of a state university. The objective of the study was to improve performance by reducing in the waiting times. The cafeteria was studied and primary data were collected during the rushed hours of weekdays for two weeks. The obtained data were simulated with Rockwell ARENA 14.5 version. Existing system allowed a waiting time of 3.30 minutes in the queue. The total time in the system was 4.81 minutes. Two model developments of increasing the service provision and the addition of another counter were simulated on the software. The waiting times resulted in the simulations depicted the efficiency in the increment of the service provision by two-fold at the counter. The simulations for the data available depicted the addition of resources to the counter as the most efficient alternative. It obtained a reduction in waiting time by 74.84 percent and the service provision was increased by 67.54 percent in the system. The developments can be acheived by the standardization of the food serving and the payment handling at the counters.