Restaurant Point of Sale

A very popular local restaurant chain (4 stores) wants to contract with your company to develop a Point of Sale system for their stores.  The owners want the system to track current inventories, prices, quantities to ensure that the proper quantities of food are ordered at the right times.  Not only do the owners wish to use this to track inventories, but they also want the wait staff to use the system to take orders at the table, and the kitchen staff to use the system to fill orders.  Finally, they would like the system to be accessible on the Internet so evening commuters can use the Internet to enter their order, enter a pick-up time, and their credit card number so the restaurant can have the order ready when they get to the store.

The restaurant owners have a few goals for this system.  Specifically:

There are four classes of users for the system, each with specific skills & needs:

1.     Managers / Owners:  Complete access to system.  Buy food items from distributor, track inventory, track popular food items, etc...  Enter and update prices.

2.     Wait staff:  Take orders using hand-held device.  Quick, easy access to multiple orders.  Ability to take exceptions to orders within specified limits.  Must not require significant amounts of training (ie. intuitive).  User need not have more than high-school education.

3.     Kitchen staff:  Display orders on multiple stations for different types of food (hot food, salads, cold foods).  Provide ability for orders to be re-sequenced.  Quick access to recipes, quantities of food remaining, etc...  Assume user has high-school education.  Enter recipes including quantity of food used.

4.     General Public:  Ability to enter orders with a credit card number and pick-up time.

At some point in the future, the restaurant may bring their accounting and tax systems completely within the POS. The system you are designing must take this into account.

The Order Process

After the patrons are seated, a waitress (or waiter) will take their drink orders and appetizer orders, and bring out drinks.  Next, the dinner order is taken and appetizers are taken out when they are ready.  The dinner order is delivered once the food is ready.  Finally, towards the end of the meal, the desert order is taken, deserts brought out, and the check is delivered.

Notes:

• Orders can be updated at any time during the meal.
• A skilled waitress can attend to 6 tables at the same time and in any order.

Food Preparation

There are two food preparation areas in the kitchen.  One for hot food, and the second for cold food.  Cold food can be prepared within 10 minutes of delivery to the customer.  Hot food must be delivered as soon as possible after being ready.  Food is prepared, generally, first in first out though if one order will take a while to prepare, other orders can be moved ahead.

Inventory

Quantities of all food items are maintained.  When an order is filled, the quantities are decremented based upon the amount of food in an order (4 oz. sliced beef, 1 potato, etc....).  The restaurant manager must also be able to independently adjust inventory for food waste.

Web Ordering

Accept orders on web site for any menu item.  Accept credit card number and telephone number from customer.  Allow customer to enter pick-up time.  Estimates current kitchen load and inserts order in the sequence to ensure specified delivery time can be met within 5 minutes.

Features for the Future

While these features are not planned for initial launch, restaurant management envisions the system to be updated to provide the following features:

• Tracking employee time and payroll.
• Handle state taxes with minimal activity by the managers (ideally, print the completed form, envelope label, and check for manager to sign and mail).
• Link the four (and maybe more) stores for inventories, payroll, work schedules, etc... to facilitate the interchange of employees, food, and supplies between stores.

Product Overview 

 1.     Product Functions - this is a brief description of the high level product functions, not a detailed listing.

In 1 -2 pages, you should briefly summarize the project you are working on. Give your system aname. Describe what it does and who will use it. What needs will your system satisfy? How will it help the users? Outline the most important features of your system.

The assignment is to write the Product Overview for this project:

Product Overview

This section contains the following elements:

• Product Functions - this is a brief description of the high level product functions, not a detailed listing.

In 1 -2 pages, you should briefly summarize the project you are working on. Give your system aname. Describe what it does and who will use it. What needs will your system satisfy? How will it help the users? Outline the most important features of your system.

• References with Harvard style and the number of references not less than three Academic Articles or books.