The Evanstonian is an upscale independent hotel that caters toboth business and leisure travelers. When a guest calls roomservice at The Evanstonian, the room-service manager takes down theorder. The service manager then submits an order ticket to thekitchen to begin preparing the food. She also gives an order to thesommelier (i.e., the wine waiter) to fetch wine from the cellar andto prepare any other alcoholic beverages. Finally, she assigns theorder to a waiter.
  It takes 6 minutes to take down the order and toassign the work to the kitchen, sommelier, and waiter. It takes thekitchen 16 minutes to prepare the typical order. It takes thesommelier 8 minutes to prepare the drinks for the order. While thekitchen and the sommelier are doing their tasks, the waiter readiesa cart (i.e., puts a tablecloth on the cart and gatherssilverware). This takes 8 minutes per order.
  Once the food, wine, and cart are ready, the waiterdelivers it to the guest’s room. It takes the waiter 14 minutes todeliver the meal to the customer. It takes the waiter additional 2minutes to return to the station and debit the guest’ account. Allthe times mentioned represent flow time at the various activities,an include the effects of waiting.
Activity Time and Visit
Activity | Activity Time | Visit |
to take down the order and to assign the work to the kitchen to prepare the typical order to prepare the drinks for the order waiter readies a cart to deliver the meal to the customer to return to the station and debit the guest’ account | 6 16 8 8 14 2 | 2 1 1 1.5 1 2 |
a. Draw a process map for the room-service process: from receiptof order to delivery of food
b. What is the critical path and theoretical flow time of theprocess?
c. What is the effect on the process flow time if the waitercould prepare the cart in 6 minutes, instead of 8?
d. Computes the waste time due to rework?
e. The hotel wants to reduce its theoretical flow time by 4minutes. Give an example of using elimination approach to reducethe theoretical flow time. (Show which activity or activitiesshould be reduced and by how many minutes).
