Mario's Pizza

Frankie Maltes

OPS/571

9/12/2011

Professor Paul E. Sam

Company Background

Mario’s pizzeria was started in 1950 and is located in an indoor mall in Palm Springs, California. Mario’s pizzeria is popular for its authentic taste and fresh ingredients. Though Mario has been pretty successful in his business there is a need for him to make some changes to his current processes in order to meet the demand of his customers. Mario has a conservative approach to business and still prefers to bake his pizzas in traditional ovens. Though Mario has taken the conservative approach he is not averse to increasing his profits and making the necessary changes in order to do so.

Current Issues

Customers typically come in groups of four and the arrival ratio is 60:40. The average wait times during the peak times are usually about 7-9 minutes. There have been an increasing number of customer complaints in regards to extended wait times. Consequently, customers are leaving the restaurant before they are being serviced. If Mario wants to satisfy his customers he will need to lessen the wait times. Furthermore by optimizing the processes for the peak time in the restaurant Mario will be able to take full advantage of the benefits.

Current process

Service strategy begins by selecting the operating focus---the performance priorities --by which the service firm will compete. Two of these are 1) Treatment of the customer in terms of friendliness and helpfulness and 2) Speed and convenience of service delivery (Chase et al., 2006). According to the simulation, the tables at Mario’s had very high utilization of 97% and the wait times were in between 11-12 minutes. According to the simulation, wait times should not surpass the upper tolerance of nine minutes. Upon viewing the simulation some of the processes could have been eliminated in order to decrease the customer wait times. For example, it was 11 minutes before the customer’s order was taken and a...