Zingerman's is a famous Ann Arbor deli which has created a living culinary laboratory where customers can experience everything from corned beef and noodle kugel to estate-bottled Tuscan olive oil to terrific grits from South Carolina. They sell tons of brisket, thousands of hand-shaped traditionally made, bakehouse bagels, and many thousands of Magic Brownies every year. At the Deli and Roadhouse they serve complete meals to customers from all walks of life every week. They also serve as local artisan producers — Zingerman’s Bakehouse makes traditional bread and pastries; the Creamery crafts fresh cheeses; the Coffee Company sells carefully roasted beans; and the Candy Manufactory makes some pretty amazing old-fashioned candy bars! Zingerman’s Mail Order ships it all to food lovers across the country. From the start, Zingerman’s always wanted to cultivate a strong customer base so that people eating at Zingerman's always have a rewarding and really positive experience.
Our student team won the Deloitte design challenge to optimize the Zingerman's crowd management system. We had to design a robust system that a manager at Zingerman's could control to schedule his/her staff and inventory to keep up with their popularity.
The Problem
Zingerman's has problems with crowd management during busy game days. The manager has an ipad and three employees and needs to manage the rush and other issues related to running a restaurant.
User: Manager and employees at Zingerman's.
Information Needed
The information needed includes:
1. Local Calendar - in this case he University of Michigan events calendar and the Ann Arbor city calendar
2. Employee Availability
3. Inventory information
The information needed includes:
1. Local Calendar - in this case he University of Michigan events calendar and the Ann Arbor city calendar
2. Employee Availability
3. Inventory information
Problems
These are the problems currently faced at Zingerman's.
These are the problems currently faced at Zingerman's.
1. Scheduling employees' shifts
2. Inventory management: this gets very difficult to plan for game days in Ann Arbor
3. Crowd management
2. Inventory management: this gets very difficult to plan for game days in Ann Arbor
3. Crowd management
Preliminary Sketch
Solution
We propose the use of an iPad portal which is integrated with local, university and holiday calendars. Different modules would be available to manager and include the following information:
We propose the use of an iPad portal which is integrated with local, university and holiday calendars. Different modules would be available to manager and include the following information:
Scheduling Employees - employee calendar and scheduling mechanisms. Also integrates calendar with predictive analysis highlighting busy and not-busy time of the month, year, day and employee availability.
Inventory Management - calendar integrated with predictive analysis on the inventory and how to manage the inventory.
Crowd management
Crowd management
Zingerman's has issues on busy days as the lines get very long and the amount of space available in the store is very small. Due to this, they lose customers and revenue that they could capitalize on. We decided to take a three pronged approach to solving this issue. We created user personas to tell the story of three users that come to Zingerman's on any day busy/slow and recommended technology based solution.
Strategies to improve crowd management
1. Use of mobile app
2. Using ipads/ staff to help with orders
3. Using self service kiosks
2. Using ipads/ staff to help with orders
3. Using self service kiosks
User Personas
We created three user personas to support our recommendations.
User 1:
Micheal loves to have Zingerman sandwiches, he has been to the deli a lot of times and has his order pat down. He loves using new technology and is very dependent on his phone to help him streamline his busy schedule.
User 2:
Sarah is new at University of Michigan and Ann Arbor. She has only heard of the Zingerman experience and wants to try out their sandwiches.
User 3:
Jack loves to eat at Zingerman, he is an Ann Arbor local who likes watching sports and trying different sandwiches. Jack is comfortable with using technology and loves coffee.
We now describe three scenarios for these users:
Scenarios
The scenarios are outlined as follows:
Scenario 1:
The scenarios are outlined as follows:
Scenario 1:
Micheal uses the Zingerman app to look at the menu and order the sandwich through the app. He knows he will reach Zingerman and they will have his sandwich ready. He walks into the store, pays for his sandwich and walks out/ eats his sandwich at Zingermans.
Scenario 2:
Sarah walks into Zingerman's, she does not know what to expect when she gets there. As soon as she walks in, she is greeted by a Zinger employee Mary who informs Sarah of all her options and also gives her the menu and is ready to take her order. Mary then takes Sarah's order, prints her a receipt with a waiting number on it and welcomes Sarah to browse through the store as she waits for her sandwich.
Zingerman's can measure the time it takes from the moment Sarah selects and gives her order for her sandwich till the time she pays for her order and decide if they can streamline operations.
Scenario 3:
Jack loves eating at Zingermans and wants to try something new, he walks into the deli and is greeted by Mary. He tells her that he will need some time to order and wants to see the menu. Mary directs him to the self service kiosks where he browse the selection of sandwichs and create an order for himself. The kiosk then prints him a receipt with his number and asks him to wait as Zingerman's creates his sandwich. Jack then picks up his sandwich and can head out or eat in store.
Other recommendations:
Zingermans should incentivize ordering through the app
Having customer appreciation built into their model they could keep customers interested and engrossed while they are in line: eg. Encourage them to play games. Listen to music via the app.
Having customer appreciation built into their model they could keep customers interested and engrossed while they are in line: eg. Encourage them to play games. Listen to music via the app.
Other team members:
Josue Reyes
Marcy Held
Ankita Gupta
Marcy Held
Ankita Gupta
