Ted's Eats operates three food trucks that sell cooked lunches to employees throughout a crowded downtown area. The layout within each of the three trucks is identical, being divided evenly into six areas, three on the driver's side of the vehicle and three on the passenger's side. Each truck currently has the cashier's window in the middle area on the passenger's side, with the grill station directly behind it. To either side of the grill station are a prep station in the rear area and a plating/packaging station behind the driver. The cashier is enclosed on both sides by storage; food storage is located in the rear of the vehicle and nonfood storage is located in the front area. Ted's Eats intends to double the size of its food truck fleet next year, and wonders if this layout should be copied into the new trucks, or changed. When inter- viewed about the importance of closeness concerning every possible pair of areas, food truck crews mostly reported each pair could be given a closeness ratings score of "U" for unimportant, since everything is located in a relatively small space. There were six exceptions, however, concerning the highest and the lowest scores that a pair of work areas could earn:

To evaluate possible food truck layouts, Ted's Eats has decided on a numerical weighting scale in which each pair of areas sharing a border within the truck floorplan grid will earn nothing if its closeness rating is U, but each pair with an A will earn 100 points and each pair with an X will earn -100 points.

Questions 

1. Organize the Ted's Eats closeness ratings into an REL diagram. 2. Draw the existing food truck layout and calculate the total score it earns. 3. Ted's Eats recognizes that the cashier's area cannot be moved, because it requires a window through which to serve customers, which must be in the middle on the pas- senger's side of the vehicle. Find a better layout without moving the cashier's area, and calculate its total score. Is this the best layout possible?

Transcribed Image Text:

Closeness Ratings of X grill station and cashier grill station and nonfood storage Closeness Ratings of A prep station and food storage prep station and cashier plating/packaging station and grill station plating/packaging station and cashier