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DEPARTMENT : INFORMATION SCIENCE AND INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY

NAME : IDRIS LILA MOHAMED

REG NO. : DIP/IT/1066/2016

UNIT TITLE :PROGRAMMING PROJECT

PROJECT PROPOSAL : AUTOMATED COOL BREEZE RESTAURANT

SYSTEM

EMAIL :idrislila40@gmail.com

PHONE :0710212254

SUPERVISOR : MR:MBUGUA

DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this is my Original work and has never been submitted or anybody.
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Name Signature

IDRIS LILA MOHAMED

A project documentation report submitted to the Institute of Advanced Technology

for partial fulfillment for the award of a

Submitted on: NOVEMBER

Signed Date

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to first and foremost thank the Almighty God for the gift of life and enabling me
make it through the project. My family for giving me the moral support and encouragement that
helped me pull through the project. Not forgetting my best friend Martin who mentored me all
through and mostly my project supervisor Mr. Julius Moga by being there for consultations and
guidance.
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ABSTRACT
Cool breeze restaurant is one of the best known restaurants in Naivasha town. It has had many
problems over recent years with some customers by being accused of wrong bill calculations and
also customers denying to pay claiming that they did not take something they had already being
served. An AUTOMATED HOTEL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM will be able to interact with the
customer and print the receipt which will help the waiter to have an accurate order from
customer. This will reduce inconveniences between the waiters and the customers. The
automated management system will facilitate the waiter to serve the customer the order printed
on the receipt. This will create more accuracy reducing the chances of the customer denying his
order compared to the manual order system. Also the customer can cancel the order in case the
printed order turns the bill to a higher price than he expected.

Contents
DECLARATION..............................................................................................................2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.................................................................................................3
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER ONE..................................................................................................................5
1.1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................5
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY..............................................................................5
1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT...........................................................................................5
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1.4 IMPLEMENTATION..................................................................................................6
1.5 OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT...............................................................................6
1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE SYSTEM...............................................................................6
1.7 SCOPE.......................................................................................................................6
CHAPTER TWO................................................................................................................8
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................8
CHAPTER THREE..........................................................................................................10
3.1 OVERALL PROJECT DESCRIPTION...................................................................10
3.1.1 Description of the current system.........................................................................10
3.2 SYTEM DESIGN....................................................................................................12
3.2.1 Requirements..................................................................................................12
3.2.2 User interface..................................................................................................12
3.2.3 Welcome screen..............................................................................................12
3.2.4 Login screen....................................................................................................13
3.2.5 The system startup screen..............................................................................14
3.2.6 Database design.............................................................................................19
3.2.7 Managers perspective.....................................................................................19
3.2.8 Customers perspective....................................................................................20
3.2.9 Settings............................................................................................................21
3.2.10 Print...............................................................................................................22
3.2.11 Project Budget...............................................................................................22
3.2 RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................................23
3.3 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................23

CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
In today’s ICT evolving world most business firms are relying on the automation of
computerized systems. This led to automation of tasks and also increases efficiency in all the
computerizedoperations. Automation of tasks also saves time and reduces the errors related to
manual systems. Due to recent rapid population growths,automated or computerized systems
have also helped in time saving since offering of services to a large number of customers
reducing congestion and also increases accuracy since computers are prone to forgetting and also
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they are not bias by either race, relationship or social status therefore facilitating equal
distribution of services at all times.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Cool Breeze Restaurant is a restaurant located in Naivasha town.It was started two years ago and
has rapidly grown over the past year due to the towns growing population and its location in
Naivasha town where it’s the main leading trading center in Nakuru North Region. It started as a
simple cafe that did not cater all the customer’s needs since the population around was larger
than the cafe could provide. After a year the restaurant expanded its facilities and also improved
the services by employing highly qualified chefs to cater for the customer needs. They also
increased the number of employees in the restaurant so as to improve on the time efficiency and
also improve the time of service.

1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT

The challenges encountered by the existing system serve as a major drawback to the realization
of efficiency and customer satisfaction. The experience of ordering in most fast food restaurants
is not pleasant for the customers. Customers will have to make long queues before placing their
orders especially during peak hours and then the ordering staff will record customer orders.
Having placed their order, the customer must then wait near the counter until their order is ready
for collection. The other problem in the food service industry is that restaurants are not realizing
the efficiencies that would result from better application of technology in their daily operations.
Fast food business in a very competitive business and one way to stand out from competitors is
through improving the business process where business process automation can assist business
improvement. The other problem with the current system is that the customers are not able to see
the availability of the meals before they place their order and also they only have to pay for an
order.Also Customers might require to seek information about the restaurant which might also
lead to bias spread of information or increase the rate of rumors spread.. Besides this section for
customer view themenu that restaurant prepared and makes their ordering. Restaurant manage
their business by manual especially take customer ordering. . Need more paper to take the order
and also hard to handwrite receipts for a whole day.

1.4proposed solution
The system implementation will be developed by use of visual studio software and by use of
VB 6.0 language.
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1.5OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

 Come up with an interface where user will be able to interact with the system at ease.
 To develop a database that will keep information about the food details
 To store the customer comments about the restaurant
 To calculate all orders in relation to the customers
 Access to information about an employee’s leave details by the supervisor through
attachments made by the employee.

1.6LIMITATIONS OF THE SYSTEM

 . The system is prone to payment via automated cards.
 .The system is limited to update of product prices
 .The system is limited to two user’s login and all privilege is. Given to the manager. And
the staff members are considered to as customers since they are not recognized in the
system.
 The system does not keep track of all the activities carried out by a user.
Implementation
 The system implementation will be developed by use of visual studio software and by use
of VB 6.0 language.

1.7scope
 The interface will prompt the user to login with the proper credentials before accessing
the rest of the system.
 The interface will be easy for all customers both literate and illiterate.
 .The system will automatically target all the customers and also help in printing the
receipts about all the current transactions of the customer.
 .The system will also store records about all the new food introduced in the restaurant and
also be able to delete missing variety from a database.
 .The system will also enable the restaurant to improve on their services by storing the
customer’s comments about the organization.
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CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
The perspectives of organizational, marketing and strategic Management theories provide a
reliable theoretical groundwork to understand the important managerial aspects of menu, For
instance, organization theory explicitly emphasizes theInfluence of external environment both on
the decisions of firm managers and the survival of firms on the long run.More specifically,
external environment is one of the centralThemes of organization theory and the relevant studies
(Duncan, 1972, Jurkovich, 1974, Dess and Beard, 1984And Ashill and Jobber, 1999) primarily
propose that managers Essentially consider the influential external factors that create
Uncertainty, diversity and volatility while making their decisions.Planning and operating menus
in a restaurant context Involve considering external factors such as customers, rivals, And
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vendors that have agreat potential in creating uncertainty, Diversity and volatility in the
restaurants' immediate business environment. Complementing this view, marketing theory
recognizes the importance of identifying the needs and expectations of customers, and
developing and improving products and service perfectly fit to those needs and
expectations.Additionally, pricing, promoting and distributing the products and services should
also be consistent with the customers' needs and expectations on the one hand, and with the
firm's objectives on the other hand. Thus, in the restaurant context, it is imperative that menu as
the food and beverage combinations offered by a restaurant reflects the expectations and needs of
customers. Moreover, managing menus involves planning, pricing, designing, distributing and
promotional decisions which are also the main issues of marketing. Strategic management is
another promising theoretical perspective that helps us understand the importance of menu and
its associated managerial activities with Reference to competitiveness of restaurants. Indeed,
creating andsustaining a competitive advantage is the main focus of strategic management
discipline. More specifically, strategic management principally investigates the phenomenon of
sustainable competitive advantage as a source of performance differences among business firms
(Nerur et al., 2008). Following this argument, it is plausible to consider the role of menu in
creating sustainable competitive advantage for restaurants. In particular, offering a unique meal
experience and assuring customer satisfaction are the main sources of competitive advantage for
a restaurant. As one of the important components of meal experience, menu deserves a special
attention to understand how a restaurant firm can achieve its strategic goals, can create a
sustainable competitive advantage, can satisfy its customers and can outperform the rivals.

Strategic management literature currently encompasses a wide range of strategic management

schools posing different strategy definitions and processes (Sarvan et al., 2003). As a result, there
are various understandings of the meaning of strategy (Okumus, 2002). For example, Mintzberg
et al. (1998) define 10 schools of strategic thinking as design, planning, positioning,
entrepreneurial, cognitive, learning, power, cultural, environmental and configuration schools.
Among the 10 strategy schools, positioning school provides a clear typology of strategy
alternatives. For instance, Porter (1980) proposes well-known three generic strategies: low cost
leadership, differentiation and focus strategies, those are also available for restaurant firms.
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CHAPTER THREE
3.1OVERALL PROJECT DESCRIPTION
This section describes the entire project’s description and the requirement of the project to run in
on any platform.

3.1.1 Description of the current system

The current system being used in Cool Breeze restaurant is the manual system where a customer
orders a commodity/food directly to the waiter and also in case of any complains and comments
one has to meet the manager directly.There are several steps currently followed for a successful
service to occur in the manual system.
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Fig 3.0 Food order flow diagram

Waits
Waits for
for aa waiter
waiter
Customer

Pays to:

cashier
Waiter takes the order
to the chef

Waiter brings the

order to the customer

Fig 3.1 Complains, compliment and comments

CASHIER WAITER

CUSTOMER MANAGER
Compliment towards the manager
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Fig 3.2 Information seeking

Giving

information
Seeking
information Any other
Customer personnel
Communication

3.2 SYTEM DESIGN

System design provides the understanding and procedural details necessary for implementing the
system recommended in the system study .Emphasis is on translating the performance
requirements into design specifications. The Design phase is a transition from a user – oriented
document (System proposal) to a documented oriented to the programmers or database
personnel.

3.2.1 Requirements
For the system to work one needs to have the following set of requirements:

 A personal computer or a laptop.

 Must be compatible with Visual studio 2010 professional.
 Firefox web browser.
 Microsoft Office 2010 or latest.
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 Microsoft .NET framework 4.5.

 Must be running later versions of windows 7.

3.2.2 User interface

The system is designed on a graphical user interface which is the most suitable to most users
because of its ease of use. Also computer illiterate personnel can easily interact with the system
as it is similar to that of an ATM machine.

3.2.3 Welcome screen

The first logon system screen is the welcome screen that invites the user to interact with the
system.it is also known as the splash screen. The screen contains the name of the restaurant. And
also the customer is welcomed by a system voice known as sapi voice.

Fig 3.3 Welcome

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3.2.4 Login screen

The system has a login screen which prompts the user to login using the correct or proper
credentials for security purposes e.g. to prevent anyone from altering the food prices. The only
person assigned all the privilege is the manager only. Even the staff members are not given any
priority over the system.

Fig 3.4 LOGIN FORM

If not a person is the manager he just has to click on the enter button without having to enter any
credentials.If he tries on entering any credentials the system will just recognize and notice that he
is a customer.Therefore the welcome voice will term him as a customer. Else if the credentials
resemble the one assigned for the manager. The welcome voice will welcome him as the
manager.
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This makes it easy for both of them the customer and the manager to share a single interface
whereas they have different privileges.

3.2.5 The system startup screen

Once one log in to the system, the main system interface load .This contains all the information
contained in the system. They are all represented by buttons containing icons leading to different
interfaces depending on the selected one. This interface changes its background color randomly
after every 3seconds after it has loaded.

Fig 3.4 First user interface

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The interface contains popups that explain what every button represents once a user hovers the
mouse on any button. This makes it easy to navigate around the system because the user knows
every step.

Table 3.1 SYSTEM BRIEF BUTTON EVALUATION

login button allows a user to return

to
the login form

Menu button Allows the customer to

view the available menu
items from the database.

Order drinks Allows the customer to

button switch to an interface
that allows him to order
drinks.
Order foods Allows the customer to
button switch to an interface
that allows him to order
food staffs.
Order Snacks Allows the customer to
button switch to an interface
that allows him to order
snacks.
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Comment button Allows the customer to

be able to post his
comments, compliments
or complains to the
manager.
Browser button Allows the
user/customer to
browse/visit the
restaurant’s
webpage .To know
more about the
restaurant.
Administrator Allows the
button administrator to add
new commodities to the
menu.
Settings button Allows the
administrator to change
the current login
password in case of
situations such as
password leak.
Calculator Is available incase the
button customer doubts the
receipts calculations.

Debug button Allows the

administrator to
troubleshoot issues in
command line interface
Calendar button Allows the user to know
the current date, month
and year.
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Review button Allows the manager to

review the
comments/compliments
from the customers.
Print button Allows the customer to
be able to print the
current transactions.

Exit button Allows the user to close

the application once
he/she has completed
the transactions.

Fig 3.5 Available user interfaces

Place an order clear selected food staff and

placed orders

Food select group box

Order manually
incase food is
missing on select
box
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Calculate sum
total of all order

Calculate the total

balance

Displays the
amount, total and Previews the
Select table balance current receipt
number preview and print

This interface can be accessed by clicking on the order food button .It allows the customer to
place his order for any item he/she is interested in that is available in the food select
checkboxes.Also gives the customer a platform to select the table number he is to be served at so
as the waiter to know who to serve and where.

3.2.6 Database design

The system has an integrated Microsoft access database that stores the menu items.The
database information can only be altered by the manager whereas the customer has only the
ability to view the menu items without the ability to edit them.

3.2.7 Managers perspective

The manager can add, delete, and switch to items by use of navigation buttons .This makes it
easier for him to detect errors easily.
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Fig 3.6 Database design

Table 3.2 Button description

BUTTON DESCRIPTION
New Prepares the database to receive new items
Save Adds new records to the database
Delete Deletes items from database
Next Navigates to the next of the selected items

Previous Navigates to the previous of the selected items

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3.2.8 Customers perspective

The customer is not privileged to any write permissions but only he is to read from the database.
This is ensured by not providing a button but only the close button which closes the menu
interface.

Fig 3.7 Menu view

The interface contains the items full description and incase the customer finds any problems with
the menu he is to send his comments using the comment button. This will later reviewed by the
manager for improvements if complain or suggestion is valid. These record are originally stored
in the Microsoft Access Database.

Fig. 3.8 Access database view

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This is because they can be easily accessed anytime and also because Microsoft office
(Access) is compatible with all computers operating on windows platform. Hence makes it
easy to load the database immediately the application loads.

3.2.9 Settings
This interface allows the manager to change the password anytime. If the new password does
not match with confirmation password.

Fig 3.9 Change password

Then it displays an error message. Once the manager clicks on the OK button. He is returned
back to the system settings.

Fig 3.10 Change password

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3.2.10 Print
Fig 3.11 Print preview

This interface allows the user to print receipts about the current transactions.
This is accomplished by clicking on the print button. And if a printer is connected the
receipt is printed automatically.

3.2.11Project Budget
This includes the total expense the entire project is going to cost for it to be implemented.

Table 3.3 Project budget

ITEM DESCRIPTION COST

PROCESSOR Intel Dual Core processor 25,000 Ksh
R.A.M 512 MB or Above 3,000 Ksh
HARD DISK 80 GB or Above 8,000 Ksh
PRINTER Hp Deskjet printer 10,000 Ksh
VISUAL STUDIO 2010 Ultimate 2,000 ksh
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MICROSOFT OFFICE 2010 - 2013 1,500 ksh

TOTAL 41,500 Ksh

3.2 RECOMMENDATIONS
Due to changes occurring daily in the ICT evolving world, it is at most advisable for every
system to always being upgraded over some period of time. This is one of the major
recommendations as upgrades leads to improvement of every organization’s efficiency
e.g. .improvement of services leading to the success of the organizations structure. Other
recommendations include:

 Make sure the supply of electricity daily and at all times to run the system.
 The user must be able get familiar with the system so as to reduce inconveniences.
 The manager has to keep the password a secret and consider it as confidential.
 In case of any errors encountered in the system the customer has to consult the manager.
 The restaurant staff members have to make sure that the printer is always connected and
the printer has the printing papers inserted in it at all times.

3.3 CONCLUSION
The project is presented as an educational exercise and during the period of development
challenges were encountered e.g. Time insufficiency, inadequate research materials etc. but all
the challenges were overcome by use of extra-efforts towards completing the project also by
dedication. But as research goes by the restaurant management system can be improved and to an
extent that it can enable manager to handle the employed staff. And also it can enable the
manager to update items prices.
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