Benihana The impact of batching during the early dinners period is minor. During this period, most new customers are funneled directly into the restaurant. However, in Scenario 2, this period starts to have negative results. Each new group is seated at the table, and there are instances where there are only two people to an eight-person table. In Scenario 1, there are no lost customers during this period, while there are occasionally lost customers during this period for Scenario 2.

The peak dinner period of 7-8pm is where the impact of batching is most noticeable. During this rush in Scenario 1, the batching process allows the restaurant to have a high level of capacity utilization in the dining room. During this period, the bar area is busy, but the bar area is not a profit driver for Benihana. The profit driver is the dining room so it is important for Benihana to maximize dining room capacity utilization rather than bar capacity utilization. During this period without batching in Scenario 2, the lack of batching really hurts Benihana. During this period, dining room capacity remains sub-optimal, the bar is full, drink orders go up and so does the number of lost customers. Those lost customers are the...

Again, the company without batching is maximizing bar profits at the expense of restaurant profits.
This trend continues with the late dinners period 8-10pm. At the start of this period, the dining room is full and the bar usually is, too. In the first Scenario, with batching, the dining room capacity utilization starts at 100% and tapers towards the end. The bar becomes empty relatively quickly as patrons by around 9pm are moved directly to tables. In the Scenario 2 without batching, this is not the case. There are still lost customers through the 8-9pm hour in particular. This does not happen nearly as much in the Simulation 1. In addition, through this period the number of drink orders remains high in Simulation 2, only tapering off at the very end. However, the key to the failure of Simulation 2 is the lost customers through the 7-9pm period.

This simulation teaches about capacity optimization, and ensuring that the more profitable parts of the business are optimized. Clearly, without batching the emphasis is more on the drinks than the dinner. However, given the price of the drinks, they do not make as much contribution to the…