THE MOUNTAIN SKI LODGE Alan Kobin, manager of the Mountain Ski Lodge in Vail, Colorado is...

  

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THE MOUNTAIN SKI LODGE Alan Kobin, manager of the Mountain Ski Lodge in Vail, Colorado is trying to improve customer service for their guests and need to make sure that they are maintaining a safe and socially distant luxury environment. Alan Kobin plans to remodel the lobby area to offer a safe customer-centric front desk experience and create an optimal level of staff efficiency and guest service. Given the daily flights to the exclusive Vail airport and the anticipated distance to the hotel, Mr. Kobin believes that the peak check-in time is between 4:00pm and 6:00pm. During this time, an average of 36 guests arrive each hour. It takes an average of 6 minutes for the front-desk clerk to register each guest. Mr. Kobin wants to improve guest service by reducing the length of time that guests spend waiting in line. PLAN I. PLAN II. Plan 1 is the current plan where the hotel has four clerks on duty, each with a separate waiting line. Plan 2 would designate one employee as a quick-service clerk for guests registering under corporate accounts, a market segment that fills about 33.3% of all occupied rooms. Because corporate guests are preregistered, the registration takes an average of just 4 minutes. With these guests separated from the rest of the clientele, the average time for registering a typical guest would climb to 6.5 minutes. Under this plan non-corporate guests would choose any of the remaining three separate lines. PLAN III. Plan 3 is to implement a single-line system. All guests could form a single waiting line to be served by whichever of four clerks became available. (The only difference between the Plan1 and this proposed plan is the line formation - Plan 1 is set up with four separate lines one in front of each of the clerks, Plan 3 proposes a single line that wraps around with a corral and the next guest will go to the next available clerk). This option would require sufficient lobby space for what could be a substantial queue. PLAN IV. Plan 4 is a variation on Plan 3. In this plan, the servers will team up and work as a pair. There will still be a single line and customers will go to the next available check-in station but their will only be two check-in stations (servers). Since the clerks are working together, they will be able to register a guest in an average of just 3 minutes. PLAN V. A self-service kiosk for check-ins is the basis for Plan 5. This kiosk would provide about the same service rate as would a clerk, however, since check-ins are automated the service time would be a constant 5 minutes. Because initial use of this technology is minimal, Alan estimates that approximately 25% of the customers, primarily frequent guests, would be willing to use this machine - hopefully this percent will increase in the future. Alan would set-up a single queue for customers who prefer human check-in clerks (the remaining 75% of the customers). This line would be served by only three clerks working independently in an average of 6 minutes per guest, because of the space requirement for the self-serve kiosk and the extra expense of the technology. PLAN VI. Please provide your suggestion for a "better" queuing system. Be sure to compare your performance measures to the other plans. Your idea?????? INSTRUCTIONS: Prepare a one to two page Executive Summary which should include the following sections: a. (20 points) Case Synopsis (include a brief summary of the case and the issue that Alan Kobin is facing - include a description for your Plan VI) THE MOUNTAIN SKI LODGE Alan Kobin, manager of the Mountain Ski Lodge in Vail, Colorado is trying to improve customer service for their guests and need to make sure that they are maintaining a safe and socially distant luxury environment. Alan Kobin plans to remodel the lobby area to offer a safe customer-centric front desk experience and create an optimal level of staff efficiency and guest service. Given the daily flights to the exclusive Vail airport and the anticipated distance to the hotel, Mr. Kobin believes that the peak check-in time is between 4:00pm and 6:00pm. During this time, an average of 36 guests arrive each hour. It takes an average of 6 minutes for the front-desk clerk to register each guest. Mr. Kobin wants to improve guest service by reducing the length of time that guests spend waiting in line. PLAN I. PLAN II. Plan 1 is the current plan where the hotel has four clerks on duty, each with a separate waiting line. Plan 2 would designate one employee as a quick-service clerk for guests registering under corporate accounts, a market segment that fills about 33.3% of all occupied rooms. Because corporate guests are preregistered, the registration takes an average of just 4 minutes. With these guests separated from the rest of the clientele, the average time for registering a typical guest would climb to 6.5 minutes. Under this plan non-corporate guests would choose any of the remaining three separate lines. PLAN III. Plan 3 is to implement a single-line system. All guests could form a single waiting line to be served by whichever of four clerks became available. (The only difference between the Plan1 and this proposed plan is the line formation - Plan 1 is set up with four separate lines one in front of each of the clerks, Plan 3 proposes a single line that wraps around with a corral and the next guest will go to the next available clerk). This option would require sufficient lobby space for what could be a substantial queue. PLAN IV. Plan 4 is a variation on Plan 3. In this plan, the servers will team up and work as a pair. There will still be a single line and customers will go to the next available check-in station but their will only be two check-in stations (servers). Since the clerks are working together, they will be able to register a guest in an average of just 3 minutes. PLAN V. A self-service kiosk for check-ins is the basis for Plan 5. This kiosk would provide about the same service rate as would a clerk, however, since check-ins are automated the service time would be a constant 5 minutes. Because initial use of this technology is minimal, Alan estimates that approximately 25% of the customers, primarily frequent guests, would be willing to use this machine - hopefully this percent will increase in the future. Alan would set-up a single queue for customers who prefer human check-in clerks (the remaining 75% of the customers). This line would be served by only three clerks working independently in an average of 6 minutes per guest, because of the space requirement for the self-serve kiosk and the extra expense of the technology. PLAN VI. Please provide your suggestion for a "better" queuing system. Be sure to compare your performance measures to the other plans. Your idea?????? INSTRUCTIONS: Prepare a one to two page Executive Summary which should include the following sections: a. (20 points) Case Synopsis (include a brief summary of the case and the issue that Alan Kobin is facing - include a description for your Plan VI)

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Stepbystep Explanation The fundamentals of queuing system essay Hamdy Taha 1998 p 607 defines the queue as a waiting line system The study of queues had become a measure of performance of the waiting ... View the full answer