As I reflect upon the Benihana simulation, managing the operational details of a company can be quite challenging. Thinking strategically and lean is key to maximizing operational efficiency. The goal of this simulation was to manage the bar and dining area to maximize utilization, throughput, and most importantly profit.
Benihana strategically batches people together to get the most out of the restaurants capacity. “Batching” means sitting people together regardless if in the same group or not, as long as the table gets filled with 8 customers. “No Batching” means customers are seated in the dining are based on their size of their party. In the first challenge, we were asked how does batching strategy affect throughput? First, I ran the…show more content… All diners are batched in groups of 8 according to Benihana’s standard operating policy. This was very interesting because the high variability between the times it takes for each group to finish dining and profits. This may relate to the concept of opportunity cost because as I decrease the time it takes to dine in, profits may decrease as well because Benihana technically reduces the time customers spend in the restaurant. But the upside is that the throughput and cycle time decreases because the restaurant is pushing more customers in and out of the restaurant at a quicker rate. If Benihana kept 60 min for all three dining times it correlates to an average loss of 24 customers, avg wait of 11 min, and profit of $121.80. If Benihana decreases the times to 45 minutes and 60 minutes for 8-10:30 pm, the average loss of customers decreases to 1, avg wait time decreases to 5.47 min, and profits increase to $218! From this, I concluded that customers are okay with spending less time dining in if they don’t have to wait as long. Also, this increase profits because Benihana can serve more