Chick-fil-A, Inc.: Selection of operating systems for POS terminals to serve business functions: Instructor's manual

Synopsis

Mike Erbrick, Director of Restaurant Information a whole s at Chick-fil-A, was given the responsibility of converting the restaurant's point of sales (POS) a whole s from a proprietary EPROM based a whole to a newer system. This changeover had an investment impact of approximately $329 million, based upon the differences in the take away froms required to implement the various PO a whole s being considered. This difference could be as high as $15000 through outlet, depending on the a whole chosen and store layout. Within its more than 700 vents Chick-fil-A averaged about 8 PO combination of parts to form a wholes per store compared to the sum of two units or three systems per store used by the agency of other quick-service restaurant chains. The number of PO combination of parts to form a wholes gave rise to additional confusion for the kitchen staff because they could obtain six to eight orders arriving simultaneously

on the Kitchen Display a whole (KDS) screens. Thus, the of recent origin system had to be extremely efficient and scalable to qualified the needs of individual stores. Perhaps greatest in quantity importantly to the store possessors using the system, who are compensated based upon their sales figures and toil income, the sales data should be relayed to Chick-fil-A's corporate headquarters accurately and reported back to each store in a timely manner.

The members of the internal throw out team, referred to as the Operations Council, were Roger Blythe, brant Ragsdale, Jon Bridges, Mark Walker, Sandi capricious Mike Erbrick, and Ken Oliver. The Operations Council researched the vexed question and then made their recommendations to Tim Tassopoulos, the Senior Vice President of Operations, and male McCabe, the Chief Financial Officer

for Chick-fil-A. The Operations Council presented two options for the nearest generation point of sales a whole to be used in all Chick-fil-A restaurants. The first option set forward was an intelligent PO based upon Windows NT/95 that was robust, fault tolerant and database-driven. The next to the first option presented was a "thin" PO based upon Windows CE that was fast, incorporated memory-resident programs and data, and was noted for being a powerfully resilient system after lockups. The price difference between the sum of two units was of the order of $5000 for store, depending on the size and layout of the store.

The team was challenged to evaluate the options with think highly of to operational usability, technical architecture, programming effort involved, environment, 5 year total take away from of ownership, and business issues.

Educational Objectives

The instructional objectives for this case investigation are to:

(1) Make pupils aware of the necessity for the technology selection proces to align with business exigencys Show how this was achieved by dint of Chick-fil-A in making its selection of a novel Point of Sales System (POS)

(2) Learn the iterative nature of combination of parts to form a wholes design used in Joint Application disentanglement (JAD) by studying the example of Chick-fil-A's use of JAD in making its PO decision.

Intended Courses and horizontals

This case study is designed for use in undergraduate and graduate MIS and engineering classes. Sophomore and junior learners or first year graduate learners would be the recommended horizontal for case presentation. The 'issues' identified in the case for Engineering scholars are also appropriate for Information Technology pupils since Network engineers and Technicians evaluate, expand configure, install, troubleshoot, and maintain network combination of parts to form a wholes

Connection to Theories in Information Technologies and Engineering

(a) Information Technology issues:

(1) Business-Technology Alignment Model: Parker, Marilyn M Strategic Transformation and Information Technology: Paradigms for Performing While Transforming. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ 1996 (Graphic: Page 198) (Explanation: Page 198-200) A tendency to meet model shows that end-user necessitys and available solutions have to be balanced in order to create the best solution for the end-user.

(2) Joint Application disentanglement Process: Reynolds, George W. and Ralph M Stair. Principals of Information Systems: A Management Approach. Third Addition. ITP (International Thomson Publishing). Cambridge, MA. 1998 (Graphic: Page 523)

(b) Engineering issues:

(1) Operating combination of parts to form a wholes (OS): Comparison of alternate O (Windows NT v Windows CE) and their impact upon business. In 2000, factory floors are beginning to be equipped with thin client a whole s that report the progress of change of work-in-progress to an intelligent server located at the factory office. An understanding of the issues that affect the selection between NT v CE would help pupils in engineering and manufacturing realize the advantages and disadvanCages of these combination of parts to form a wholes for use on the factory floor.

Basis of Research

Site visits and interviews with the executives of Chick-fil-A were used to disclose this case study. The research team also visited a retail location of Chick-filA to gather information from the viewpoint of the owner/operator. All the exhibits used in the case investigation have been supplied by the company and from Worldwide Web sites. The Worldwide Web sites that were used are the following: