To: John Butkus

From: 06179012
Date: 12/1/2013
Re: Waterloo Mongolian Grill design optimization
The Mongolian Grill offers its customers with an affordable, healthy, interactive dining experience. They
expect to have a delicious meal while being wowed by a sense of occasion when they visit the
Mongolian Grill. This is a value proposition that has been successfully emulated in the London branch
and the expansion into the Waterloo area will have the same requirements. In the past, busy weekend
dinner hours have seen significant increases in the time that customers spent waiting in the process of
creating their meal. Bottlenecks in the process slowed the customer experience during high traffic hours
which results in a poorer customer satisfaction as well as reducing the nightly capacity of the restaurant
and hence reducing the revenue potential of the location. It is imperative that adaptations to the model
are made to not only improve the eating experience but also to help the business grow and maximize its
profitability.
By Referring to appendix 1 we can see that implementing both the extra preparation area and moving
the grill results in a process reduction of 17 min per customer which will allow for each table to service
an additional group of customers. When the additional expenditures and wage expenses are taken into
consideration we can see that the implementation of these changes will breakeven in less than 1 year
(appendix 2). As a result, every following week will have an additional $100 in profit as well as having
excess nightly capacity to serve additional clients. In order to optimize the flow of customers and
potentially outperform the anticipated improvements, a redesigned layout has been created as seen in
appendix 3. These changes will help streamline the preparation process, and improve the experience by
minimizing wait times that dont add value to the customer and allowing more time for creating,
watching and eating.
While operational efficiency will reduce throughput times per trip, the total effect on the dining time is
unknown. The experiential aspect of the Mongolian Grill makes it a place that customers like to spend
their time. The food preparation time amounts to only half the time spent in the restaurant. There are
opportunities to increase revenues not only on volume basis but as well as on a per customer basis. By
having servers actively taking drink orders throughout the service they will be able to make greater sales
of higher margin products and create another touch point with staff to ensure that the experience is
going well. Currently customers seem to only purchase one drink but considering the amount of time
spent at the Mongolian grill that can easily be increased to drive up revenues and no extra cost.
In order to implement these changes it is important that the designs are approved and the staff is
trained and tested accordingly throughout the process. Stress testing and measuring the operations
prior to open will help minimize errors once open. The full implementation can be seen in appendix 4.
Mongolian Grill has the opportunity to implement improve the experience for its customers while
improving its capacity and per user revenue leading to greater profits after just one year.
Appendix 1: Throughput calculations during Saturday Night
Second Preparation Area Move Grill Both
Original Throughput 866 seconds
Expected Time Savings 260 seconds 80 seconds 340
New Throughput 606 seconds 786 seconds 526
Total Dinning Time * 77 min 86 min 73 min
*90min-Expected time savings x3
If a minimum of a 15 min total throughput reduction per group is required to turn over the table an
additional time, opting for both changes will result a maximum nightly capacity increase of 190
customers. This also assumes that reductions trip time dont affect dining habits.

Appendix 2: Breakeven analysis
Additional customers served per week: 25+35+35 = 95
Additional customers served per year: 95x52 = 4940
Average Profit/Customer = $15x0.50 = $7.50
Fixed one time expenditure: $600+$3200+$2100 = $4900
Additional weekly wage expense: $8x8hrsx3nights + $12x5hrsx7nights = $612/week
Breakeven: $4900/ ($7.50*95)-$612 = 48.75 weeks till the investment is paid off. Following that the
restaurant will make an additional $100 per week assuming that the investment will not increase the
fixed costs of the restaurants operations.
Note: These calculations rely on the arrival and exit of customers to be uniformly distributed in order to
allow for capacity to be fully utilized and prevent balking or reneging.


Appendix 3: Optimized layout
The design is intended to maximize flow by allowing customers to use both sides of the bar as well as a
rotated counter layout that make both stations equidistant to minimize confusion.
Appendix 4 Implementation
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6
Approve
Design
Plans

Design
Interior

Hire
additional
staff

Train Staff


Test staff
and
benchmark
operations

Make
required
changes

Open