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CASE 3.1 Operations Oriental Express [OP]
Group:03
Class: ADMN1207004 Quantitative Management Decision-Making
Word-Count: 417
TO: James Chan, Owner of Oriental Express
DATE: 21st November, 2024
SUBJECT: Design changes in Sarnia Oriental Express
The purpose of this memo is to help the owner of the Oriental Express restaurant, James
Chan, choose what major change in the floor plan he should adopt in their new restaurant,
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which will increase the capacity of the location while also making it more efficient to serve
his customers in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes that he made while operating his
previous restaurant.
The Windsor Oriental Express is quite popular and was usually filled to capacity during
Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. This resulted in a long waiting time in the food
preparation area during peak hours. Therefore, James Chan wanted to introduce some new
operational design changes within the soon to open Sarnia location that will prevent the
challenges that were faced in the Windsor location.
The following are the design changes that will increase the efficiency of the Sarnia location:
Implementation of a second food preparation area:
It is estimated that it would save the diners over 4 minutes per trip from the food
preparation area back to their tables with the help of a second food preparation area.
By using the data collected by James, we can estimate that the wait time would
decrease by approximately 28.57% during peak hours. (Appendix A: Wait Time
Calculation)
To implement this, it will cost $7,300 for the installation of food bar and spice bar
with an additional $15.00 per hour wages paid to the new kitchen staff.
Relocation of cooking grill:
Relocating the grill to the centre of the restaurant will provide more room for the
diners as they wait for their food and essentially save an additional 80 seconds per
trip. (Appendix B)
To implement this, it will cost $9,600 and an additional $19.00 per hour wage paid to
the cooking staff.
Additionally, it will be beneficial to add tables that can accommodate 4-6 people at once
rather than 2 people to increase capacity. Moreover, a staff should guide the diners to avoid
creating a bottleneck near the food preparation area.
Rather than seeing them as expenses we can see the cost to implement these design changes
as investments. It can be estimated that the design changes will enhance the customer
experience while also decreasing their trip time, leading to an overall reduction in time spent
by a diner at the restaurant which will allow the restaurant to seat more customers and
increase their overall sales.
Appendix
Appendix A: Wait Time Calculation
The following calculation shows the percentage change in wait time when the wait time
reduced from 14 minutes to 10 minutes:
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Percentage change = (Old Time – New Time)/Old Time X 100
= (14-10)/10 X 100
= 28.57%
Appendix B: observations made my James Chan and Time Saved
Stations Wednesday Night Saturday Night Time Saved
Walk to Food bar 12 Seconds 25 Seconds N/A
Wait at Food bar 0 Seconds 106 Seconds 90 seconds
Food Selection 88 Seconds 161 Seconds 60 seconds
Walk between 3 seconds 12 Seconds N/A
stations
Wait at Sauce/Spice 0 Seconds 94 Seconds 80 seconds
Bar
Sauce/Spice 62 Seconds 99 Seconds 30 seconds
Selection
Walk between 3 Seconds 10 seconds N/A
stations
Wait at Grill Station 0 seconds 80 seconds 80 seconds
Diner moves to 245 seconds 246 seconds N/A
counter and watches
their food cook
Diner receives food 15 33 N/A
and returns to table
Total Time (One 428 seconds 866 seconds 340 seconds (Total
Trip) time saved)
Total trip during Wednesday will go from 428 seconds to 88 Seconds and during peak hours it
will go from 866 seconds to 526 Seconds.
Technologies that were used:
Technology that was used For which part and what purpose
Quill Bot To check grammar
Ai Prompts that were used:
Prompts For which part of the assignment
“How can I write the “TO” and “FROM” It was used for the heading statement
line in the heading section of a memo if
there is only one person mentioned in the
case study”
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“Do you think hiring a staff would prevent To figure out whether a design change
restaurant customers from bottlenecking an would actually work or not
area”
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