Session 1 - Benihana of Tokyo

Prep

This case is so fucking cool. Like they completely reengineered the restaurant as a manufacturing system where people are the goods.

Question 3: Operational System

Production Process Flow

This is an informal Process Flow Diagram:

Customer Arrival
        ↓
Host / Queue Management
        ↓
BAR / LOUNGE (BUFFER)
(waiting + drinks)
        ↓
Table Assembled (8 seats filled)
        ↓
Seating at Hibachi Table
        ↓
Order Taken (limited menu)
        ↓
Chef Arrives with Cart
        ↓
Cooking + Entertainment (Production)
        ↓
Eating
        ↓
Payment
        ↓
Exit

Note that production does not start (and is halted at the queue) until a full “batch” of 8 customers is assembled.

Where Are the Flows?

• Customer Flow: arrival, bar, table, exit
• Food Flow: suppliers, refrigerated, minimal prep, chef cart, table, customer
• Information Flow: Host communicates seating, Waitress communicates order, Chef then cooks
• Labor Flow: Chefs rotate between tables, Waitresses serve two tables each

Where is Inventory Held

• Food Inventory: back of house
• Customer Inventory: bar/lounge

Role of Bar Area

• It’s a queue that waits for people to be ready and a solid group of 8 to appear
• Increases revenue per customer: Beverage margins is at around 80%
• Beverage sales rose from 18% to 30% as bar size increased

How Large Should the Bar Be?

• Minimum: enough to hold one full seating cycle of demand so no tables are ever idle
• Maximum: no one should be walking out because their wait time is too long (more than 30 minutes?)
• Best is closer to maximum because then people will basically buy drinks to wait and will still spend the same amount of money at the tables

What Dessert?

1. It cannot take too long and cannot require a chef because both will be somewhere else
2. Must not slow table turnover because that makes us the most money
3. Maybe just an ice cream? Or some Mochi?

Something creative: maybe on the way out, you have fancy deserts that are bite sized lined up. That’s even better for turn around time.

In-Class

Little’s Law

In this course we write it as

$$I=R\times T$$

Where:

• $I$ = Average Inventory
• $R$ = Average Flowrate
• $T$ = Average Flow Time