Introduction

The purpose of this assignment is to propose the use Information Systems (IS) in improving

service quality h two areas at Thurnbkin Hose Resturant (THR) namely: 1. To tract food items

stock level so that there will never be out of stock problems and 2. To adopt online ordering

to reach more customers to THR The assignment requies discussion on how IS could be. used

to improve service quality of the restaurant.

Background of Thumbkin House Restaurant (THR)

THR is located in Kuala Lumpur. This restaurant serves a variety of eastern and western

cuisines and drinks_ THR is already using Information System (IS) in

handling data for processing food orders on daily operation_ It has provided

faster response to customers. But managenrnt want IS functions to be expanded to track

food tens stock level so that there will never be "out-of-

stock" problems_ THR also wants to adopt online ordering to reach more

customers via food delivery service. In order to implement these goals,

appropriate IS Strategic Planning has to be carried out.

Overview of the assignment content

INFORMATION SYSTEMS

An information system is a computer system that provides management and other personnel

within THR with up-to-date information regarding the organization's performance that

involves only food orders. THR need to upgrade the system so that THR would be able to

include current inventory and sales.. It is and need to be designed to capture, transmit, store,

retrieve, manipulate, and or display information used in one or more business processes.

These systems output information would be useable at all levels of the organization: strategic,

tactical, and operationaL

Organizations use different types of MIS for different needs and scenarios. At a given point of

time an organization might be using several types in isolation and in combination. THR need

to use transaction processing system (TPS) to tabulate all its recurring transactions like inventory

and custorrer orders. The operations information system, (OIS), is used by managers to

plan out their production and schedule activities. The decision support systems ( DSS) is used by

the top management to find feasible solutions and options to different

scenarios.

The uses of MIS in THR Management would help in:

1. transaction processing such as answering the questions, status of a particular record and
variety of documents.

2.1t gives operational data for planning, scheduling and controL

3.1t helps in decision making and to correct an out of control situation.

4.1t helps middle management in short term planning, target setting and control the business
functions.

5.It helps top management in goal setting, planning business planes and is implementations.

6.It helps in generating information, communicating of the generated iiformation, problem

identification and helps in the process of decision making.

How IS can be used to track food items stock level,

1. The inputs involved

a. What arears need to be changed? Changes would involve new computers , software to

accomodate the new requirement of stock inventory

b. Who would be involved in the changes? The IT personnel would be the foremost

person to be hvolved, the serving staff, the teller machine staff, the chef, the store

person. These are people who are directly involved in the use of the new system

c. How much would it cost? Costing involve new purchase of intemet facilities,

computers, teller machines,training of staff if necessary to man the system

2. The process involved in carrying out the above function through IS requires the folowing

steps:

Step I ;Start from scratch. Perform this initial count of inventory .

Step 2;Set up a software-based inventory control system that has automatic calculation

feature, and with software that can be pre-set orders to be triggered at certain inventory

levels.

Step 3; Establish company pokis for inventory controL Make sure that accurate inventory

records are kept and that at least one party is specifically responsible for inventory

management on a daily or even near-real-time basis.

Step 4;Set up your inventory control procedure to involve two people if possible. Not only do

two sets of eyes make i less likely that anything will be missed during the inventory count, it is

also a good general safety and anti-loss measure.

Step 5;Confirm expected usage and investigate significant variances. Restaurants can track the

exact numbers of each item on the menu sold each day, and have good idea of what

ingredients are used and how that should be reflected in inventory. THR need to keep in mind

that Inventory variances are part of the restaurant business. Sometimes an employee

accidentally ruins a large batch of food, or spoilage occurs due to a banquet cancellation or

another expected demand that does not materialize, or sorretines employees simply have to

''corrip" a lot of dishes in a given week because of a new cook learning the ropes. Significant

variances from expected usage could, however, represent theft, and should be investigated.

Output

The use of Information Technology (IT) helps restaurant in making their services much better

and makes work easier. The application of IT could be in the form of using the internet to

advertise a firm's services, managing data with technology, online ordering and

communicating with customers through the internet among other services. Applying IT to

restaurants could also improve their service quality. Use of IT to manage its data has the

potential to improve service quality as well as its decision making processes. THE which

maintains a database of all orders that is customers make, are better informed about the

meals that customers order mast. By addin a new software in the system it would help the

restaurant's rnariagerrent to keep track of its supplies and inventory, and know what extra

kerns management needs to buy and would be able to achieve the " no stock" . The Point of Sae.
(POS) System for managing sales would be easy to collect information on sales and

orders made.

THR could use the following strategics:

Chase strategy where stock produce are only to meet or the demand for goods, that is to

produces meals only when a customer orders therefore matching the actual production with

customer demand. The chase strategy keeps inventories low, which frees up cash that can be

used to buy raw materials or components, and reduces inventory carrying costs that are

associated with holding inventory in stock. Cost of capital, warehousing, reduction,

insurance, taxes, obsolescence and shrinkage are all inventory carrying costs.
The second strategy is Make-to-stock whera goods are produced before customers place

orders. The make-to-stock strategy typically allows manufacturers to produce goods in long

production runs, taking advantage of production efir iricies. Because the make-to-stock

environment produces goods on a consistent basis, a master production schedule detemiine.s the

exact number of units to produce for each production run. Thus this strategy allows the "no

stock" available.

The third approach is Make-to-order strategy where THR produce goods after receiving an

order from the customer. Most often a company that uses the make-to-ogler strategy produces

one-of-a-kind goods. This is not a good strategy for THR since they serve both western and

easten cusine and drinks. Unless they keep track of popular dishes and drinks and have fix

menu

laii) Illustration of relevant IS input-transformation-output flow diagram for function lai.

nil Discussion of how the IS can be used to support online ordering f or food delivery service, by focusing on the
following details:

On line Restaurant Marketing Strategies

On Line food ordering services are websites that feature interactive menus allowing
customers to place order to THR. Customer would choose from available items, choose
delivery or pick up. Payment can be by credit card or cash.
On line marketing strategy opens to virtual ways of promotions by attracting new customers
with functional website establishing communication with customers, promoting the
restaurant, give information about daily deals, menu changes, and any events in the
restaurant.

The website must be regularly supplemented with new content and optimized for internet
browsers. High quality POS software offer the ability to update menus offers and changes in
the price.
Advantages for online ordering.

Customer can order at will when they have time to. They can customised their order the way
they want to without errors in communication. The restaurant can take more orders with less
staff.

There would be disadvantage too. Customer may not pick up the order and there wouki be
waste of food an loss of profit.

•The inputs involved

•The process/ methods (step 1, step 2, etc.) involved in carrying out the above function
through IS
The output produced

IS Strategic Planning to achieve the two new objectives of THR

1. Suitability of IS With THR

To be able to achieve the two objectives of THR, strategic planning to suit the goals needs to be

carried out by THR. To come up with two changes, TIIR has to strategically plan on

changes involving resources used to attain these deals, and on the policies that are to govern the

acquisition, use and disposition of these resources.

Thus strategic planning is a process involving acquisition and disposition of facilities,

divisions, or subsidiaries, the markets to be served and distribution channels for serving them; the

organisation-structure ; research and development of new product lines .

Strategic Planning decisions affect the physical, financial, and organizational

framework within which operations are carried on. There are several steps in

strategic planning process that THR need to follow the following steps namely:

1. The first step is to establish objectives, the results expected, what is to be

done and where the primary emphasis is to be placed.

 2. The second step is to establish planning premises, i.e. assumptions about the

anticipated internal and external environment that involve additional

technology, and social and ethical condition, qualitative and quantitative and

controllable, non controllable. the product market; and the factor market,

(location of factory, labor, and materiaLs etc). Internal premises include capital

investment, sales forecast and organization structure. Some premises can be

quantified while others may be qualitative. Some premises are controllable,

such as expansion into a new market, adoption of a research program or a new

site for the headquarters. Non-controllable premises include population growth,

price levels, tax rates, business cycles etc. The semi controllable premises are

the firm's assumptions about its share of the market, labor turnover, labor

efficiency, and the company's pricing policy.

3. The third step in planning is to identify alternative courses of action.

4. The fourth step is to evaluate them by weighing the various factors in the

light of premises and goals.

5. The fifth step is adopting the plan.

6. The final step is to give meaning to plans by preparing budgets.

The information technology architecture needed for THR

Information technology architecture is the process of development of methodical information

technology specifications, models and guidelines, using a variety of Information Technology

notations, within a coherent Information Technology architecture framework. following

formal and informal Information

The IT Architecture is guided by the following objectives, which help make decisions for

establishing standards that serves: the Department's mission, and heterogeneous

environments. IT architecture should should identify areas of stability without impeding

essential innovation, should describe the tangible resuks of conformance and non-

conformance with the architecture. should provide sufficient documentation to assess the

compliance of a specific irrplenentation.

What is the purpose of the IT Architecture?

The purpose of the IT Architecture is to guide the process of planning, acqui-ing,

modifying, interfacing and deploying IT resources throughout the restaurant. IT Architecture

should offer a weans of stable evolution by identifying technologies that work together to

satisfy the needs of the Departn-kmi users. The proposal put forth by IT architecture for THR

two new objectives have taken inti account of the above wuntion reqiiirerucnt.

To be able to succeed in the plan, TI-ER need to understand the approaches that would

involve

1. Rational planning involves identifying and understanding gaps between

previously established goaLs and past performance, identifying the resources

needed to close these gaps, distributing those resources and monitoring their

use in moving the organization closer towards its goals. This approach assumes

the environment is predictable and the organization can be effectively

controlled. Since this is a straight forward business serving western and easterd

cusine, THR have chosen the correct approach.

2. Incrementalism means moving from one strategy to the next, depending on

the unfolding of events beyond the control of managers. Incrementalism

assumes that managers cannot forecast or enforce the developments essential to

developing a pre-ordained strategy and therefore must continually adjust.

Future developments are likely to be random so that there is little scope to

learn from past experiences. Thus, in contrast to rational planning which

emphasizes intended strategies, incrementalism is based on emergent

strategies.

3. Organizational learning also emphasizes the need for making continuous

adjustments. However, these adjustments need not be random. Rather,

managers must keep making incremental adjustments to rational plans as

they attempt to move the organization toward its goals. Though they may be

unable to foresee the future, managers must not allow their organization to

drift aimlessly. The role of top management is to encourage all employees to

continuously challenge the status quo, generate ideas for improving the

status quo, conduct experiments to see which of these ideas are most fruitful
 and then try to disseminate knowledge gained from these experiments

throughout the organization.

Time and budget needed and functionality

Staring a restaurant is an ambitious undertaking in term of tinx and money. But since TI IR

has already started using IS for food orders budgeting would take into consideration of

existing facilities. The following budget needed to be taken into account are:

1.New equip-rent and technology cost and prioritizing the most important list, do research

price for example wifi price option

2. Sales and marketing

So as not to over budget and over spend the following need to betaken into action,

Leverage the Internet.

Sign up for social media sites.

Place low-cost Facebook and Twitter ads; consider advertising on other social media sites.

Start a conversation using your web si te's blog and social media
Hand out flyers at local businesses.

- CONCLUSION

TTI Restaurant, need to apply MIS tools such as a Point of Sale system or a Post Order

System to their internal operations. This will help them have a system to calculate both their

orders and record inventory. The system will also help management keep track of and

milker their stock. With this system i will be difficult for stealing to take place and delays in

providing what the customer wants. The system to monitor its inventory will help the

restaurant know exactly which items need to be bought ahead of time and avoid telling

customers to order another meal instead of their preferred choice. Inventory system helps them

record their inventory instead of doing it manually. The chasier would be able to

transfer order data from waiter to the computer. The inventory section stores information

about the item name, quantity available and the price at which it was bought. The data on orders

and inventory goes into a MySQL database which can be viewed by the administrator. The

adrnininstrator can also keep track of any data that has been entered and receipts can also be
issued. Other users can be created so that the staff in the kitchen can view the orders made by

customers. The inventory section helps the storekeeper record new items in inventory and track

inventory in order to alert management of the new t'emp that need to be bought. Casual dining

restaurants that use. MIS are able to improve upon their internal processes and

therefore able to do more with their external processes. Service quality is indeed important

and must not be ignored in a restaurant"s operations. 'Thus, in order to gain a competitive

advantage in the food industry, it would be best for a restaurant to apply information technology

very well to its operations to achieve good service quality.