Simulation Introduction “Applying the Learning Curve Theory” simulation regards around Mario’s Pizzeria, a pizza parlor based in Palm Springs, California. Mario’s pizzeria is a successful business in Palm Springs that is known for its originality and freshness in taste. Mario, the owner of Mario’s Pizzeria, examines his grandson’s capability of managing Mario’s Pizzeria. He will test his grandson’s management abilities and will declare his grandson the heir of Mario’s pizzeria if his grandson is successful. In this simulation, one will run the restaurant as if Mario’s grandson and will use his/her knowledge from the previous business classes. The student’s goals are profit maximization and minimization of wait time for customers. Optimization of both factors is the key to success in this situation.
Learning Curve Theory First step is identify whether the current table set up is appropriate for this business situation. I set a cost of 20 dollars per day for ten tables of four people. 95.71% of the four table sets are exploited at $20; 87.27% of the two table sets are exploited at $16. The operating staff of four people is operated at 86.94% with a mean, standard deviation, and total cost of $8.00, $2.12, and 200 dollars per day. The operating kitchen staff is employed at 65.14 percent efficiency with two people and a mean, standard deviation, and total cost of $3.00, $1.00, and $160.00. Altering the values of table sets and kitchen/waiter did not increase the profits as decreasing the table sets did increase the profits.
The next task is to decide between restoring or purchasing new ovens. I have the option to whether repair the currently broken two ovens or purchase either a manual or conveyor oven. A manual oven will cost 1100 dollars and 20 dollars for operation per day; a conveyor oven costs 4500 dollars and 30 dollars for operation per day. A manual oven can bake up to four pizzas at once while a conveyor oven can bake up to eight pizzas. A manual oven can bake four pizzas at an average of eight minutes while a conveyor oven can bake 4 pizzas in four minutes. I prefer to buy to a conveyor oven because it can bake more pizzas at once that decrease the wait time of a customer. Thus, more customers can come to the pizzeria and there is a higher profit generation.
Along with that, I also purchased an AOP (Automatic Order Processing) system. This system acts as a catalyst for the waiting process and decreases it by 5 minutes. This new system will cost 45 thousand dollars, which is quite costly. However, the profit has now increased to about 1560 dollars and the loss has decreased to 480 dollars. After renting out a nearby bakery of Cream Puffs, the profits increased to 2040 dollars as the restaurant space increased (four more tables of two and seven more tables of four) and the wait time decreased to a low of 2.82.

Conclusion

The “Applying the Learning Curve Theory” simulation explains running a business in a nutshell. The simulation explains how to achieve profit maximization and customer satisfaction maximization. Managing the amount of tables, table sets, expansion, and software update are important processes when running a bakery. While going through the simulation and increasing in the weeks, my learning curve increased and I understood as Mario’s grandson what to expect from customers and how to manage the tables, prices, staff, etc. By the end of the simulation, I made the right decisions and made this venture successful.

References

“Process Control and Problem Solving Simulation”, 2010. University of Phoenix. Retrieved on month, day, year.