Process Improvement at IIM Kashipur’s Hostel Mess

Kapil Vaish PGP 1018

INDEX

ContentsExecutive Summery...............................................................................................................................2

1. Introduction...............................................................................................................................3

1.1 IIM Kashipur.........................................................................................................................3

1.2 IIM Kashipur Hostel Mess....................................................................................................3

2. Current Scenario........................................................................................................................4

2.1 Procurement........................................................................................................................4

2.2 Cleaning and washing plates................................................................................................4

2.3 Challenges for the mess.......................................................................................................5

3. Data Analysis.............................................................................................................................6

4. Recommendations.....................................................................................................................9

5. References...............................................................................................................................10

6. Exhibits......................................................................................................................................12

Executive SummeryIn a student’s driven mess at various institutes, cost plays a major factor. Keeping low cost & high quality & service are the two important objectives of mess committee. At IIM Kashipur, mess is also completely student driven & normally it charges Rs 3000 per month which includes breakfast, lunch, dinner & morning, evening, night tea. Over a span of one year it has been observed that mess committee has not been able to reduce the cost although the no. of students & staff having food in mess has increased from 40 to 90.

Through this project we as a group have tried to understand the current working of mess & came up with recommendations through which cost cutting & improvement in service can be done. In this report we have tried to explain the current practices being followed at IIM Kashipur’s Hostel Mess & bottlenecks that are present in mess. The second half of this report explains various suggestions which we thought can reduce cost & improve service at mess.

1. IntroductionMr. Atar Singh, Mess In charge of IIM Kashipur’s hostel mess was confused over some of the basic mess functioning. He was in meeting with student Mess secretary Mr. Himanshu Porwal on the quantity to be ordered from the vendor. Second batch of IIM Kashipur has been enrolled and now head count has increased from 45 to ~90 (including faculty and staff). Himanshu was not able to understand that even though the head count has doubled, leading to spreading of fixed costs, still the overall mess expenses per head has not come down substantially. The problem seemed to be beyond economic order quantity.

One month earlier a new batch of 42 students joined the campus. Total batch of student in campus increased from 37 to 79, addition to which 5 faculty member and 4 administrator staff joined the campus which took total population of the campus to 88. Mess staff and workers are not included in this counting.

1.1 IIM Kashipur

IIM Kashipur, youngest of all the 13 IIMs under the ministry of HRD, Government of India started its operation on 1st July 2011. The first batch of IIM Kashipur boasted of 38 bright young minds from all over India. The students are enrolled for the PGDM programme which is a full time, two year residential program. All the activities are student driven and done by various committees including the mess committee. Kashipur is located in a rural backdrop in U.S Nagar, Uttarakhand.

1.2 IIM Kashipur Hostel Mess

Hostel mess is managed by “Mess and Infra committee” of IIM Kashipur, a student body initiative. Himanshu Porwal was elected as the mess secretary by the first batch of IIM Kashipur along with 3 other students as a part of mess committee. Mr. Atar Singh is the mess manager/in-charge of student’s mess of IIM Kashipur and looks after the functioning and implementation part. Mess is mainly responsible for following activities:

1. Breakfast: Timing from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM2. Lunch: Timing from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM3. Dinner: Timing from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM4. Evening and night tea

Mess had a work force of 7 workers that include manager, chef, and other workers in first year. In the second year, mess workforce increased from 7 to 9 as the batch size increased. There work is distributed as:

1. 1 Manager 2. 4 chefs3. 3 workers4. 1 sweeper

2. Current ScenarioTotal sitting capacity of mess is 36. Breakfast has a variety of cuisines spread over the entire week and thus the utensil and container requirement varies. For lunch and dinner, the food items differ but have a lot of common items such as Chapattis, rice and curd. In general, one sabji and one dal are served. Food is placed in containers in following manner:

1. One container for Chapatti2. One Container for Rice3. One container for Dal4. One Container for Sabji5. One Container for sweet dish (Dinner) or Curd (Lunch)6. One Container for Non Veg on Wednesday & Sunday

Rice, Dal and sabji are kept on one side in separate containers. See Exhibit 1 for placement of the containers. It is normally observed that at peak time i.e. in first 45 minutes of lunch and dinner timing there is a high gathering on this side and also at the chapatti counter.

2.1 Procurement

For procuring food items they use period order quantity method of 25 days. Vendor is fixed and deliver the order in bundle i.e. all the items needed comes every 25 days in a bundle. See Exhibit 2 for vendor lead time and standard deviation in lead time. However as per Mr. Atar Singh, minimum order quantity that can be procured from the vendor should be equal to at least 14 days of daily demands.

Total number of fresh plates kept typically during lunch or dinner is 95. Bowls and spoons are kept in a ratio of two and one respectively. Once a plate is used it is not kept again for use in that particular period.

Plate’s utilization during dinner time was observed for 5 days and observations were made for 15 minute slots. See Exhibit 3 for details.

2.2 Cleaning and washing of Plates

Cleaning 15 plates require on an average 18 minutes. (The data was obtained based on observation and in consultation with Mr. Atar Singh). The 18 minutes used are distributed across various stages in cleaning the plates. A typical distribution is as follows:

1. Sorting of plates and disposing waste food: 3 minutes2. Cleaning and Washing the dishes (plates, bowls and spoons):10 minutes3. Wiping the utensils: 5 min

The above described task is done by one worker only.

Exhibit 4 depicts the flow of food items, plates (worker who is washing dishes) and students.

2.3 Challenge for the mess committee

Mess Committee is under certain pressure by students who after acquainted with the various techniques in supply chain management have started asking questions as to why the cost has not declined, despite the head count been doubled. The mess committee is searching for answers to these questions and mess committee and Mr. Atar Singh are having frequent meetings to determine the existing gap and how it can be bridged. Himanshu is pondering over his learnings from the supply chain course and is thinking of re-applying his knowledge of EOQ model, safety stock, reorder point, vendor selection and many more concepts. He hopes to get a solution soon.

3. Data AnalysisThe first challenge was to come up with an optimal quantity of flour and rice to be ordered. After interviewing Atar Singh we get some insight that order is placed in a bundle as a whole i.e. all the mess material delivered at one time altogether. He also said that at vendor will give a delivery of at least 14 days of inventory. Hence we take 14 days of inventory as our order quantity and came up with the safety stock to be maintained and reorder point. The concept of reorder point is essential because currently they are following period order quantity of 25 days.

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 430

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Figure 1: Current Inventory Consumption

After coming up with the data analysis we recommended following details:

Flour RiceDemand(Daily) 5 5Lead time(Day) 2 2Std Dev in lead time 1 1Current days of inventory 25 25Total OQ 125 125Average Quantity 62.5 62.5Constraint Least days of Inventory 14 14Inventory 70 70Safety Stock 11.6 11.6Average Inventory 46.6 46.6ROP 18.2 18.2 Reduction in Average Inventory -25.39% -25.39%

Table 1: Safety Inventory and ROP

Quantity

Period

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 430.0

10.020.030.040.050.060.070.080.090.0

Figure 2: After recommendation Inventory Consumption

Total reduction in inventory level comes out to be 25.37%.

There is still scope of improvement with other mess items where quantity can be decided by same method.

Second unnoticed thing what we as a team noticed was use of plates, bowl and spoon. Currently they are using one plate per person for dinner, lunch and breakfast with no replenishment of plate once it is used in that period.

We applied a reverse logistic application and developed a MILP model to come up with optimal number of plates to be kept at first when continuous replenish of used plates is done. We gather a 5 day dinner time data of plates consumed per 15 mins and plates returned for washing in same time slot. Details are given in exhibit no. 3.

Before developing MILP model we assumed that this data is normally distributed. Also we employed another worker who will wipe the plates. With this we assumed proposed window for disposing plates in used now. This will reduce the washing time of 18 mins per 15 plates to 10 mins per 15 plates as wiping is dome simultaneous by other worker.

Plate Consumed Plates come for cleaning

Start End MeanStd Dev Current

Proposed

Start End MeanStd Dev

Plates Remain

8:00 8:30 18.0 1.4 41.0 39.6 8:00 8:30 11.4 2.1 0.0

8:30 8:45 23.8 2.9 17.2 10.9 8:30 8:45 21.8 4.0 0.0

Quantity

Period

8:45 9:00 15.0 3.1 2.2 1.2 8:45 9:0017.8 3.1

0.0

9:00 9:15 13.2 1.9 -11.0 2.6 9:00 9:15 13.0 3.2 0.0

9:15 9:30 10.2 3.3 -21.22.7

9:15 10:00 22 5.24 0.0

9:30 10:005.8 1.10

-27.04.4

Optimal plate quantity59

61.3 Cummulative no of plates

Optimal Bowl Quantity 118 0.95 Customer Service level

Optimal Spoon Quantity 59

Reduction in Plates 37.9%

Washing Process (For 15 plates) Current

New after Bucket system

Sorting 3 0

Washing 10 10

Cleaning 5 0

Total (in Min) 18 10Max Plate in 15 min time slot can be cleaned 12.5 22.5

The optimal result of plates to be kept is 59 plates at 95% customer service level. This reduces the plates, bowl and spoon inventory by 38%. For model details please refer excel sheet.

This model can be vastly applied in companies which majorly depends of reverse logistics or where reverse logistics approach can be applied. This will reduce their inventory drastically.

>=1 + - - SQRT ( + )

INT

2 2

4. Recommendations Containers to be placed on both sides of main counter for vegetable, rice & dal. This will help

in reducing the queue which is generally formed at peak time. See exhibit 5 for more clarity One person should be deployed for serving chapattis to people who are eating food. This will

reduce movement of students/staff & rush at the food counter Inventory of 14 days for flour & rice should be kept. This will result in reduction of inventory

by 25.3% Currently worker movement is 35 meters for collecting used plates & he takes 12 sec. to

segregate plates, bowls, and spoons. We recommend shifting the counter used for disposing unclean plates to new location. See exhibit 6 & exhibit 7 for detail. Students would be asked to segregate their plates. This will reduce the worker movement by 55% & time needed to segregate the plates by 1 hour daily.

By using reverse logistics approach for plates used in mess; plates, bowl and spoon inventory can be reduced by 38% at 95% customer service level.

5. References

- Operations Research by Hillier & Lieberman- Supply Chain Management by Sunil Chopra, Peter Meindl & D.V.Kalra- Personal Interview of Mr. Atar Singh (Mess Incharge)- Personal Interview of Mr. Himanshu Porwal (Mess committee’s Secretary)

Exhibit 1: Food counter and Chapatti counter

Exhibit 2: Demand, Vendor Lead time & Std. Deviation of lead time

Flour RiceDaily Demand (Kg) 5 5Lead time(Days) 2 2Std. Dev. in lead time (Days) 1 1Current days of inventory 25 25Total OQ (Kg) 125 125

Exhibit 3: Daily plate consumption & cleaning data observed over 5 days

Plates ConsumedDate 8:30 8:45 9:00 9:15 9:30 10:00 Total09/8/2012 17 23 11 15 14 5 8510/8/2012 19 22 14 13 12 7 8711/8/2012 19 22 14 10 10 7 8212/8/2012 19 29 19 14 5 5 9113/8/2013 16 23 17 14 10 5 85Average 18 23.8 15 13.2 10.2 5.8 Std Dev 1.41 2.95 3.08 1.92 3.35 1.10

Plates submitted for CleaningDate 8:30 8:45 9:00 9:15 10:00 Total

9/8/2012 9 23 15 12 26 8510/8/2012 10 16 16 18 27 8711/8/2012 14 21 17 10 20 8212/8/2012 13 27 23 14 14 91

13/8/2013 11 22 18 11 23 85Average 11.4 21.8 17.8 13.0 22.0 Std Dev 2.07 3.96 3.11 3.16 5.24

Exhibit 4: Current mess layout & flow of material

Exhibit 5: Two containers around food counter

Exhibit 6: Current & recommended counter for disposing used plates

Exhibit 4: Current mess layout & flow of material

Exhibit 7: Improved mess layout & flow of material