Memo of Transmittal

To: Rick Collins, Campus Dining Warehouse

From: Connor Tustin
Date: 25 November 2016
Subject: Proposal to Investigate Wait Times of On Campus Food
Attached is the recommendation report regarding wait time for Campus food and how it
adversely affects students. The purpose of this document is to improve upon the issues which I
have presented using one of the solutions which I have researched.
Recommendations
Throughout the report I will guide you through two possible solutions which can be seen as the
following:
1. Relocate locations of various restaurants around campus to divide foot traffic and
eliminate the masses of people all in one location
2. Replace restaurants that are less popular to ensure one restaurant is not overwhelmed
while another is completely empty
Methods
To ensure maximum knowledge on the subject, I have conducted research in many forms from
reputable sources as well as first person research.
Primary Sources:
Email and personal interview with Rick Collins
First hand observation in The Avenue
Secondary Sources:
Cal Poly Corporation article
Statista visual on importance of certain aspects of a restaurant
Manuscript of students interests regarding Campus Dining
Campus Dining website
Findings
All of my research will be presented in the methods section of my report. In addition, all
analysis and explanation of what the research means to finding a solution will be presented in the
results section of my report.
Final Recommendation
Out of the two solutions which I have compared in the report I am going to recommend solution
number two, to maximize use of existing restaurants rather than constructing new ones.
Thank you for taking the time to read this report. I hope the information it contains is helpful to
your situation. If any information needs further explanation I can provide assistance.

Prepared for Rick Collins

Cal Poly Campus Dining

Proposal to Investigate Wait Times of Cal Polys On-Campus Food

Written by Connor Tustin

Submitted November 25, 2016

Table of Contents
Introduction1-2
Methods...2-3
Primary............2
Secondary.2-3
Results.....3-5
Primary.3-4
Secondary.4-5
Conclusion...5-6
Recommendation6
References...7
Figures Cited..7

Table of Figures
Figure 1...1

Introduction
Purpose
Campus dining is by no means as efficient as it could be in many ways. The wait time to get
your food is abnormally long, especially for college students with an extremely busy schedule
already. This is magnified from ten minutes before each hour to ten minutes after each hour due
to people coming onto campus to go to class as well as people getting out of class at the same
time [1]. I have come up with two possible solutions for this problem which I will compare and
contrast throughout this paper. To eliminate the long waits to get a meal on campus I propose we
either relocate locations of various restaurants around campus to divide foot traffic and eliminate
the masses of people all in one location or replace restaurants that are less popular to ensure one
restaurant is not overwhelmed while another is completely empty. Whether you desperately need
brain food before class to function properly or simply have more important things to do than
stand in line, if you eat campus food at some point during your day then you are affected by this
problem.
To prevent this issue from staying on our campus I interviewed Rick Collins who has been
working for campus dining for many years and has seen much progression in the dining system.
He provided me with an insight into his experience to help me provide the best solution to the
problem we currently have on our hands.
Background

As of now on the Cal Poly campus

there are only a few locations to eat
and they all contain many different
restaurants within them. The
campus dining website provides a
layout of locations of all the
restaurants on campus. According
to this site there are four main
locations on campus where students
can go to eat [2]. These locations
average around seven different
restaurants within each space. The
restaurants cause major congestion
in very concentrated areas during
peak times throughout the day. One
specific area which has this issue
can be found in figure one in
buildings 19 and 65.

Figure 1. Cal Poly Campus Map

When you have to make the daily decision to stand in a long line to get a meal or eat something
much less substantial and not be as prepared for school as you would have been, you know that
there is a serious issue that should be addressed. This becomes a problem even more so at Cal

Poly due to the rule that all freshmen must live on campus. This creates a limited distance that
first years can travel to get a decent meal.
Organization
After the ending of this introduction the report will be laid out as follows. I will explain my
methods of research, both primary and secondary research, followed by the results which I was
able to come up with using the previously mentioned research sites. These results will then be
interpreted and tailored specifically to the problem I was presented with. Using this information
I will recommend to the best of my ability the most effective solution to eliminate the problem.

Methods
My research has been conducted in many different ways to ensure all scopes of the subject have
been covered. I have been able to obtain first hand research by conducting an observational
study in The Avenue as well as an interview with my client regarding campus dining. Secondary
research was also done regarding restaurant aspects as a whole, Cal Poly dining, and connections
between the two.
Primary Research
Interview
I have emailed and met face to face with Rick Collins, a manager in the campus dining
warehouse who has many years of experience with Campus Dining and Cal Poly as a whole.
Observational Study
I sat in The Avenue for two hours observing a few particular aspects to obtain some Cal Poly
specific statistics. These aspects are as follows:
Time taken to order food
Time taken to receive food
Time taken to buy food
Amount of satisfaction shown by consumer
Time of day (11am-12pm and 2pm-3pm)
Which restaurant consistently had the longest line and its correlation to wait time
Secondary Research
Campus Dining Website
I will use the Campus Dining website to give example of how Cal Poly is set up at the moment to
give a baseline from which to improve upon.
Cal Poly Corporation
I will use the article Cal Poly food provider cuts Mustang News ads after critical story for Cal
Poly specific material.

Statista
The graphic How important are the following attributes when considering what you value in a
restaurant experience? will provide statistics and concrete numbers.
Science Direct
The scholarly article On campus food purchasing behaviors, preferences and opinions on food
availability of university students.

Results
Primary Research
Interview
In my interview with Rick Collins I asked these questions as well as follow up questions to his
responses:
1. Have you noticed a problem with getting food to the student in a timely manner? If so,
what do you think is the main root of this problem?
No I personally have not seen a problem to getting food to the students, but our area only
deals with the service area's and not the students themselves.
2. What roadblocks have you encountered previously when trying to change or enhance the
campus dining layout or management system?
The largest roadblock's we encounter is mainly lack of communication, lack of labor, or
both.
3. Are there any immediate ways of attack that you would recommend to avoid in trying to
solve this problem?
The way of attacking this or any issue is recording the issue's at hand and meeting with
all the parties involved. I have found that to make a proper correction everyone needs a
say- what fixes your area may cause a problem in another area, so everyone must meet to
come up with correct fix.
4. Out of the two solutions I have proposed to you, which do you think is more feasibly
possible? Or, do you have a better solution which I have not thought of?
Again I look at what I have described above and have used this method in the past to
make correction in several jobs in the past with great success.
5. Is there any background information about campus dining which I should be aware of
before attempting to solve this issue?
Like any other issues you may have notice or have concerns about, you should contact
the upper management and they would be able to address your concerns.
Observational Study
I sat in The Avenue for two hours observing a few particular aspects to obtain some Cal Poly
specific statistics. These aspects and results which I found are as follows:
3

Time taken to order food, receive food, and buy food

o As expected, during the peak times of the day the lines got longer and the times to
complete these processes got longer. Minimum times to receive food ranged from
no wait to less than five minutes. The maximum wait times reached up to twenty
minutes, four times the non-peak time of day [1]. However, the times did not
increase in a linear fashion as expected. Instead the times exponentially got larger
as the lines linearly increased. This may be due to workers becoming stressed or
simply an overwhelming amount of orders being pushed through the system.
Amount of satisfaction shown by consumer
o The amount of satisfaction behaved inversely to the length of line and time it took
to get their food. For the most part it was a nearly linear increase, which was
expected.
Time of day
o The busiest time of day was a series of twenty minute periods, centered on the
hour. These times created dramatic increase in foot traffic and much slower
business.
Which restaurant consistently had the longest line and its correlation to wait time
o The two busiest restaurants by far were Chic-Fil-A and Bishops Burger [1].
Their lines and wait time were extremely long compared to that of the other
restaurants in The Avenue. However, their satisfaction levels were equal to every
other eatery. Very few people seemed unwilling to wait in the long line for food
as they all seemed to enjoy it enough to compensate for their wasted time.

This test when looked at by itself leads me to believe that solution number two, to maximize use
of existing restaurants rather than constructing new ones. This is because few stores were used
to their full potential as well as that a full shut down and construction of new stores would cause
too much of an impact on traffic.
Secondary Research
Campus Dining Website
Around Cal Poly while there are lots of restaurants to eat at, there are not enough locations
spread around campus to avoid major crowds and delays. According to this site there are four
locations on campus where students can go to eat and 29 restaurants in total. In just one location
there are 14, nearly half of the total, of the restaurants. This causes an impractical amount of
business forced into too small of a space.
This site pushes me to lean more towards solution one, relocate locations of various restaurants
around campus to divide foot traffic and eliminate the masses of people all in one location. This
solution creates opportunity to spread out business across campus, keeping in mind to not let
construction impede the flow of traffic too severely.
Cal Poly Corporation
This site explains an incident where the Cal Poly Corporation became frustrated with Campus
Dining due to many complaints about the low quality food they were receiving. The Corporation
was the ignition needed to push forward changes and progression. This sudden change from fast
4

and lower quality to higher quality caused the amount of time needed to be increased. This
article follows the exact same path that Rick Collins, my client, said needed to be avoided. This
aspect of the problem shows that more parts of Campus Dining must be involved in the solution
to ensure no more problems are created during the process.
Statista
The graphic How important are the following attributes when considering what you value in a
restaurant experience? shows the percentage of people surveyed who felt the following
attributes were important in a restaurant they are going to eat at. Both being helped quickly and
being served in a fast manner score very high with most people who were surveyed [3].

Science Direct
The scholarly article On campus food purchasing behaviors, preferences and opinions on food
availability of university students showed that students on campus have almost exactly the same
opinions of what the Statista graph showed its participants find important in a dining situation
[4]. This means that the graph above is also accurate for the student population.

Conclusion
As the article from the Cal Poly Corporation pointed out, there have been issues with Campus
Dining before. Students writing for Mustang News have previously brought to attention a lack
of quality of food made in Campus Dining [5]. This shows that Campus Dining is not perfect
and has much room for improvement in more than one category. An idea advised by my client,
Rick Collins, is to incorporate all aspects of campus dining to ensure that while one problem is
5

solved, another is not simultaneously created [6]. Using this premise as a base to create a
solution, the issue at Cal Poly that I have brought up needs to be addressed.
My first solution, to relocate locations of various restaurants around campus to divide foot traffic
and eliminate the masses of people all in one location, seems to be the most logical solution.
Building exactly what would work the best for our current situation would be the fastest way to
reach a desired result. Not only this but it would expand the number of eateries we have on
campus and give a better reputation to campus dining for current and incoming students.
However, there are a few roadblocks which may hinder progress. This solution requires a lot of
construction during which the dining situation would be even worse than it is at the moment
while restaurants are shut down. In addition, buildings that are set up for academic purposes are
run by their respective college for which the building is meant to house. Acquiring use of these
locations would require cooperation from the university as a whole as well as individual
colleges. While this may create some tension, it would also begin the process of including
different entities and getting new perspectives on how to improve the system under our
guidelines.
The second solution I have presented is to replace restaurants that are less popular to ensure one
restaurant is not overwhelmed while another is completely empty. This could be done by
surveying students to see which restaurants they would like to see replaced as well as what to
replace them with. By asking the students and including them we have allowed our target
audience to form the solution around themselves which provides maximum satisfaction. In
addition this would require much less construction work and minimal time to switch over the
type of food served at each place. This solution is the most efficient and causes the least amount
of harm done in the process. However, this solution does not solve the problem of having many
places to eat packed into a small area. It only addresses using the entire area to its full capacity.
While this may be a slight downside, this solution is the most practical and involves the most
amount of people in the solution to avoid creating new problems.

Recommendation
After considering all of the information gathered in this report I would recommend the
replacement of restaurants that are less popular with those that students request through survey.
To begin this process the first step would be to survey the students and see which restaurants in
particular the university should focus on to achieve the maximum satisfaction across the
population at Cal Poly.

References
[1] C. Tustin, Wait times in the Avenue, Observational Study. 15 November 2016.
[2] "Restaurants", Cal Poly Campus Dining, 2016. [Online]. Available:
https://www.calpolydining.com/. [Accessed: 12- Nov- 2016].
[3] Statista,. How Important Are The Following Attributes When Considering What You Value In
A Restaurant Experience?. 2016. Print.
[4] Science Direct, "On campus food purchasing behaviors, preferences and opinions on food
availability of university students", 2016.
[5] Wilson, Nick. "Cal Poly Food Provider Cuts Mustang News Ads After Critical Story". The
Tribune. N.p., 2016. Print.
[6] R. Collins, Campus Dining Warehouse, Cal Poly Campus Dining. Interview. San Luis
Obispo, CA. 14 Nov 2016.

Figures Referenced
[1] Figure 1. Cal Poly Campus Map Google Images. 21 November 2016