Benihana Restaurant Essay

Words: 878
Pages: 4

CHALLENGE 1

How many additional customers can Benihana service with batching?

First of all, it was obvious from the first glance that batching strategy was the right one, as it was profitable. On the contrary, the non-batching strategy it was not profitable and there was a loss of $ 201.58. This is due to the fact that batching allows the restaurant to use fewer chefs which lowers the fixed costs maximizing the profit.
We can also notice that in the cases of batching versus the cases of non batching there was an increase in the revenue from the dining room whereas there was also a decline of the revenue from the bar. This shows that the dinner room is the source of profit and our goal must be to maximize this part of the business.
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CHALLENGE 5

What is the impact of more complex forms of batching?

The best scenario is to have tables of 8 from the opening until 8pm and tables of 4 to 8 from8pm to 10:30pm. This is the most profitable scenario with an average profitability of $126.06 because we become more flexible between the middle of peak hours until the closing of the restaurant. This is the period in which flexibility is requested, as we had the bigger problem of losing customers because of the not reaching the requested number of filling a batch. The average utilization remains almost stable, at 57%. CHALLENGE 6

Experiment with different combinations of decisions.

The combination of the best alternatives from the previous challenges seems to be the among the most profitable ones at $507.72, while there is a slight improvement of $3.67 in profitability with a change in dining times (50 minutes – 45 minutes – 60 minutes respectively). What changes between the different scenarios is the number of drinks served. We need to serve less drinks for the same number of dinners served. This will lower our costs and will be achieved through decreasing the waiting time between bar and dinner