Question

Raktida is the manager a popular Italian Restaurant on Mott Street. She wants to predict her guest counts for the first week of November so that she can estimate an accurate number of servers to schedule. Business is very good, but her sales history from last month indicates that fewer guests are served during the first few days of the week compared to last year, whereas more guests per day are served in the later part of the week. Raktida has entered the guest counts from last year and the estimated percentage change in guest counts for this year in the chart below. Because good service is so important to her, she wants to ensure that enough servers are scheduled to work each day. One server can provide excellent service to 50 guests. Help Raktida calculate how many servers to schedule each day by completing the following chart.

Raktida's Guest Forecast and Server Scheduling Worksheet for the First Week of November


Guest Count Last Year Estimated Change This Year Estimated Guest Count This Year Number of Servers Needed This Year

Sunday 625 -5%
Monday 750 -5%
Tuesday 825 0
Wednesday 850 5%
Thursday 775 5%
Friday 1250 10%
Saturday 1400 10%

Required:
How would Raktida's server scheduling efforts this year be affected if last year she had recorded only her weekly (not daily) guest counts?

Answer 1

Answer:

The advantage of recording daily guest counts is that the information is more accurate, and it can help help Raktida to better forecast the number of guests during the current year. It's all about the quality of the information and not just the total data available. Total numbers would have been the same, but the use that could be given to them would be limited. The same applies if instead of weekly guests, the information was for monthly guests. Weekly numbers would be more useful than monthly numbers.

Having daily numbers allows Raktida to forecast a much more accurate serving schedule.