Modeling methodology using Restaurant Modeling Studio™

A quick-service restaurant environment includes a market expectation to service customers, from order entry to meal delivery, in a time span of only minutes. It is critical for the processes within the restaurant to be performed with efficient use of labor and other store assets and, at the same time, provide quality service. The challenge is to maintain profitability in a business environment with continual price pressures and product introductions. Simulation provides a framework to quantify how store labor and processes are best deployed and implemented to meet the dynamic transaction service demands within a restaurant environment.

AAI has created a simulation-based software solution to facilitate the creation of analytical models for restaurant and transaction processing applications. This solution, the Restaurant Modeling Studio™ (RMS), offers the ability to automatically configure a wide range of transaction processing strategies across multiple service channels (i.e., walk-up or drive-through). Using the power of Microsoft Visio, RMS allows the user to automatically import store layouts and to specify the preferred worker movement patterns between workstations with dimensional accuracy via "drag-and-drop" utilities. RMS also includes a database where all food product details may be specified in terms of ingredients, cooking instructions and time standards.

RMS provides the ability to synchronize relationships between data, store layout and process flows to create a dynamic simulation model of a particular store design and operation plan. Real-world customer arrival patterns, transaction size and product preferences are introduced such that it is possible to analyze store productivity and throughput potential while maintaining desired customer speed of service. RMS provides an analysis framework that can be used to support a variety of restaurant operations and engineering decisions including labor staffing studies, kitchen prototyping, new product introductions and process improvement strategies.

Our Restaurant Modeling Studio™ can be used to build custom analysis tools.