An analysis report on the Staffing and Work allotment by area/ shift in Students Mess

Under Guidance of Prof R.K Srivastava As part of Operations Management Assignment

Submitted By PGP28235: Faran Haider PGP28258: Mridupawan Brahma PGP28260: Ibon Teron

Section E

Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 3 Layout of the Mess.............................................................................................................................. 3 Staffing and Work allotment followed................................................................................................ 4 Activities of each shift ......................................................................................................................... 4 Division of work and allotment per shift ............................................................................................ 5

Introduction
Annapoorna the student mess is an integral as well an important part of the IIM Lucknow campus. It is a centralized mess that caters to the need of over 900 students in the campus continuously for 20 hours a day. The mess works as a non profit unit and is run by the students for the students. A mess committee is formed from among the students itself which looks after all the proper and efficient working of the mess operations. The student team comprises of a mess secretary, a joint mess secretary and 12 mess committee members. This team manages a staff of 50 employees and an annual budget of Rs. 3 crores. The mess is open to the students from 7:30 AM to 3:00 AM. It provides breakfast, lunch, evening snacks, dinner and also operates a night mess service. The night mess is operational from 11:00 PM to 3 AM and offers both room delivery and over the counter services. Apart from these services there are two counters one juice counter where various fresh juices are available and another cashier counter where students can buy extra coupons or readymade snacks and juices. With such a tight schedule followed in a campus like IIM it is necessary that healthy and hygienic food is provided in time. To ensure such an efficient service all the components of the mess operations from raw material procurement, cooking and the final delivery of the food must be handled in a proper way. Other important operations like aggregate demand planning, layout and design of the mess, safety and environment, capacity planning and layout, waste management and staffing and work allocation also play an important role in the mess operations. In our project we will look into current the work and staff allocation that is followed and try to recommend some improvements that can be applied in this area.

Layout of the Mess

The mess is a two storied structure. In the first floor that food is prepared and cooked. In the second floor food is served only during lunch and dinner whereas in the first floor food is served for all the three times. Apart from it the cashier counter and juice counter are located in the first floor.

Fig 1 Mess cooking area

Fig 2 Mess Service area

Staffing and Work allotment followed

The mess follows a shift system in allocating the workers. The whole day is divided into three shifts

Shift 1 Shift 2 Night Shift

6:30 AM 3:00 PM 3:00 PM 10:00 PM 8:00 PM 4:00 AM

In each shift workers are allocated according to the predetermined requirements per shift. In each shift again work is divided among the workers according to specialization like cooking, washing utensils, cutting vegetables, moulding of atta etc.

Activities of each shift

Shift 1 and Shift 2 Here the activities can be divided into two group one group that needs to be done in sequence and another group that does not need to follow any sequence. In the second group the activities can be done in parallel. Both the activities in the two group are independent and can be performed separately.

Fig 3 Activities that needed to be performed in a sequence

Fig 4 Activities that does not follow a sequence

a) Night Shift In the night shift the activities can be grouped into a single group where the activities needs to be performed in a sequence.

Fig 1 Activities that needed to be performed in a sequence

Division of work and allotment per shift

Shift 1 and 2 follows the same division of work and allotment. In shift 1 and 2 cooking is done for the entire student community and thus more workers are required. Also due to the huge amount of items and food being cooked there is a need of specialized cooks. In the night shift the division and the allotment is different because here the food is cooked on demand and also the items in the menu does not need a specialized cook. The cash counter and the juice counter which is operational from

11:30 AM to 9:30 PM has the two workers allocated and does not change between the shifts. Although there is an overlap of two hours between the shift 2 and night shift timings the workers in the both the shift work independently. During the two hour the night shift worker engage in washing and cutting the raw materials necessary for preparations of the items later in the night. a) Shift 1 and Shift 2 Work Area Cooking Atta and rice preparation Grinding and Egg counter Refilling of Water and Providing cleaned spoons and Glasses in the mess area First Floor food Counter Ground Floor food Counter Dishwashing Juice Counter Cash Counter No of workers allocated 3 cooks + 3 helpers 1 1 2 1 2 1( Big Utensils) + 2( Small Utensils) 1 1

b) Night Mess Work Area Delivery Packing Cooking Phone receiver and Counter Servicing (Delivery from the cooking area to the packing area or counter) Refilling of Water and Providing cleaned spoons and Glasses in the mess area No of workers allocated 3 2 2(In case of extra rush someone from service and packing assist) 1 1 1

From the division of work that is currently followed in the mess we see that work is strictly divided according to the specialization of the worker whereas in the night shift work specialization is not followed strictly and workers normally shift between various activities.

OM Decisions
While looking into the area of work and staff allotment various concept of operations management has come into the picture. During the allocation of labour concepts like specialization of labour has been taken in consideration. The workers were allocated according to specialized requirement of each activity. Also while allocating the workers the aggregate demand was taken into consideration. A layout plan is also in place so the time taken to move the materials across the area is done in minimal time. The mess follows a process oriented one where each process like washing, cooking, preparation of materials etc are grouped together.

Problem Areas and Suggested Improvements 1. Night Mess Service It was observed that the students are quite unhappy with the night mess phone line service as well as their delivery time. More often than not, the line is found busy or unreachable. Moreover, after placing the orders, students are likely to receive it in no less than 35-40 minutes on an average. Proposed Improvement Digitization of the order placing system can greatly improve the current scenario. A simple, intranet Night Mess portal can provide a convenient method for students to place their orders and also eliminate any communication errors that might result in a wrong delivery. It would also provide the Mess with an organized, sequential list of incoming orders which can be processed accordingly. The Mess Committee can collaborate with Synapse, the IT Systems Team of the institute for this project. Currently, there are 3 persons available for carrying out deliveries to the hostels. To process these orders, we suggest using a combination of a time and area based approach. That is, firstly, one delivery person will be allocated to carry out the deliveries to the girls hostels. The other two will deliver to the boys hostel, not based on hostel clusters, but on sequence of orders and time duration between them. For every order placed, a wait-time of 10 minutes will be employed to allow for other incoming orders. Irrespective of the number of orders received, the deliveryman will leave to carry out the delivery. This process will be repeated as required. 2. Drinking Water Dispensing Another problem area was with availability for water at meal tables during peak times. Water jugs are filled with water only once at the beginning of every meal, however, there are no refills thereafter. There are 2 persons allocated to handle drinking water service but it is not apparent how they work during meal times. There is no need for additional staffing in this area. The existing allocated workers should be better trained and well informed to carry out regular refills of jugs on the meal tables. 3. Training of helpers In case of absenteeism among the specialist workers, such as the three cooks, there is problem faced with cooking workforce. To improve this situation, the cooks helpers should be trained to be able to substitute a cook, if needed.