Food

Grocery Store Design

Victor Brown Barbara Gelpi Shane Griffith Carrie Perkins April 25, 2005 Courtenay Mayes

Abstract Donald Knuth, a well-known person in computer science, used graph theory to design his kitchen. While utilizing graph theory for his personal challenge, he discovered that the garbage can is a highly desirable neighbor node; apparently everything led back to and wanted to be next to the trashcan! Fortunately in our application of graph theory in creating a newly designed floor plan for you, we did not have this challenge. Everything in our recommended floor plan leads to both increased revenues, for you, our client, and to smiles on your valued customers faces. However, we did follow in his footsteps in a similar way. We applied modern graph theory to design a more efficient grocery store. To design this grocery store, two different applications of graph theory were used to find a shortest path for ”must-have” grocery items: Floyd’s algorithm, and a Heuristic algorithm. These ”must-have” items have nearly 100% penetration in both your existing store and our recommended store. Both premium priced items and impulse buying items were placed along the calculated shortest path in our well-organized store. After comparing and contrasting our suggested store to your existing store, we are confident that our store is a superior design and is highly worthy of your consideration!

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The Challenge

Our challenge is as follows: to meet the requirements of the February 1, 2005, RFP of Gleason’s Grocers to create a grocery store floor plan to increase profit while meeting the needs of customers. Our research shows each week consumers spend an average of 1.5 hours grocery shopping during 2.5 trips to the grocery store. Eighty-five percent (85%) of their purchases are to replenish staple items. Consumers have identified quick and efficient shopping as one of the most desired traits in their evaluation of grocery stores. Degree of loyalty is affected by shoppers’...