This case is intended to be the basis for a business analysis and class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a business situation. Companies and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent actual companies or people. Copyright 1997 by Joseph Martinich. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of Joseph Martinich or the distributor, John Wiley & Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York, NY 10158. Printed in the U.S.A.

The Background American International University (AIU) is a rapidly growing university that serves both a local and international student population. The University has grown from 5400 students and 1050 faculty and staff to almost 10,000 students and 1850 faculty and staff in the past ten years, and it is expected to continue to grow by approximately 400-500 students per year for the next 5-10 years. As with most growing universities, AIU is short on facilities, especially those related to student services. AIU has a single cafeteria on campus that serves the needs of both the residential student population of 1800 dormitory students, who have semester-long food contracts, and commuter students, faculty, and staff. Current Operations Lunchtime is the busiest period for the cafeteria, and in a typical day the cafeteria will serve 3500-5000 customers for lunch (ranging from purchase of a beverage to a complete meal). The lunch period runs from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., with the heaviest volume occurring between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.. (Table 1 gives the average customer volume for each half-hour period during a ten-day period, along with the average number of customers in line.) During most of this period the cafeteria uses all ten of its check-out stations. Each station is staffed by a cashier who has an electronic cash register, a scale (for weighing foods priced by the ounce, such as salads), a meal-card scanner (students who purchase a food contract are issued a card that can be scanned and the charges deducted from the account without having to use cash), and a long metal track upon which four or five food trays can be placed by waiting customers. Even with all ten check-out stations operating, during peak periods, there are often as many as 25 people in each check-out line and customers can wait more than 10 minutes in line. This waiting creates considerable complaining because hot food becomes cold, cold drinks become warm, and students and faculty have a limited amount of time between classes for lunch. As with most restaurants, it is not cost-effective to use only full-time workers, because the customer demand varies so much during the course of a day. Therefore the cafeteria manager typically uses three full-time cashiers and several part-time cashiers during the course of the day. (There are usually 12-15 part-time cashiers (who are students) on the payroll. Typically seven part-time cashiers are scheduled during lunch and two during dinner. The extra part-time workers are available as replacements when other cashiers have vacations, days off, or are sick.) Two of the full-time cashiers work from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break from 11:00-11:30 a.m., so they can return to their work stations during the peak of the lunch period. The third full-time cashier works from 10:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break from 2:30-3 p.m. The part-time cashiers all work three hour shifts. The manager establishes a weekly schedule for the part-time workers, taking into account the number of hours each one wants to work each week, their class schedules, requests for days off, and special circumstances that might suggest a larger or smaller number of customers on given days (e.g., during finals week demand patterns change). The manager tries to stagger the starting times for the part-time workers so that during the 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. period all ten cashiers are on duty, and during other times fewer than ten are scheduled to match the somewhat lower customer demand. For example, the following schedule for part-time cashiers is typical: