Completed by Matthew Tingey - January 26, 2008
User Interface - Description
When a customer comes into the restaurant, they will be seated by an employee. At their table will be a computer screen, showing the company logo and the phrase “touch screen to order”. After touching screen they will be asked, “Will you be ordering using 1 ticket for the entire table or different tickets for each person?” After they make their selection, they will be given the menu.
The menu will be displayed as buttons on the screen, showing the name of the item, a small picture, the price and an option to view a description of the item. The menu will be broken down into multiple categories such as entrée, sides, drinks, desert, etc. In each category will be the different items. After the customer selects an item, any “add-ons” for that item will be displayed for selection, along with a button to return to main menu. Then the customer will be returned to the main menu and continue to place their order. If the customer selected the option for different tickets, there will be a large button to end their order and move to the next person’s order. When everyone has finished placing their order, they will click a finish button and their order will be sent to the cook/prep station. A message stating that the order has been sent will be displayed along with a large display of the customer’s order number (probably a 3 digit number).
The cook/prep station will display the order and order number on the screen. They will have options to “view previous order”, “view next order” and “complete order” - the computer should store at least the last 50-100 orders in case they need to be reviewed.
After the cook has completed the order, they will call the order number and the customer will pick their order up from the prep station.
The screen at the table should now list the options “Order refills” , “Order additional items” and “Request check” If they select “Order Refills” they will be given a list of all items they ordered that include option for a refill. If they select order “additional items”, it will work much the same as main order menu, adding the new items to their order and submitting the information to the cook/prep station. If they select “request check“, the screen will display their order and total, and instruct them to go to the cashier’s station to pay, the cashier’s station will display a message that order number # is ready to pay.
The cashier station will be able to take cash or credit card payments to pay the tickets (being sure to separate between orders that are one ticket and orders that are on separate tickets.) They will be able to select any order that has requested check and total it out. If needed they should be able to select an order and instruct it to request check (in case the customer didn’t select it at the table.) A receipt will be printed.
After an order has been paid, the display at the table will reset to the initial screen with the logo, ready to begin another order.
The other station will be the admin station - which I will cover in a little bit.
Any computer on the network will be able to open any of the different stations (table, cashier, cook/prep and admin.) They will require a manager to enter a password to set a computer to a specific station. This will allow them to turn stations off each night and start them in the morning. Stations should be interchangeable if needed.
The inventory will be broken down into two things, ingredients and menu items.
Ingredients have the following options:
Name of ingredient,
number on hand (able to specify from 0.00 to 10,000.00)
and the style of the number on hand (ounce, pound, unit - example: 100 units of buns, 10.75 ounces of ketchup, etc.)
Menu items will be more complex, they will need:
Name of item,
description,
price,
category,
choice of whether the item is a menu item or add-on item,
if the item is an add-on - what it’s an add-on to (example: add pickle or minus onion would be add-ons to hamburger),
price of item,
is item refillable?,
cost of refill,
small picture of item,
list of ingredients for this item (selectable from the list of ingredients already in the computer system - this will need to be infinitely expandable to include all ingredients for the menu item and will need to include the amount of that ingredient that is used for this menu item.)
For example, if someone were to order a hamburger (main menu item) minus pickle (add-on to hamburger) plus bacon (add-on to hamburger) with fries (main menu item) with fry sauce (add-on to fries) and a coke (main menu item) and then a refill of the coke (main menu - refill item) - the following items would be deducted from the inventory:
Hamburger
Minus 1 bun
Minus 1 hamburger patty
Minus 1 ounce mayonnaise
Minus 1 ounce ketchup
Minus 2 ounce onion
Minus 1 ounce pickles
Etc. etc.
Minus pickle
Plus 1 ounce pickles (this would cancel out the minus 1 ounce pickle from above)
Plus bacon
Minus 0.25 pounds bacon
Fries
Minus 8 ounces fries
Minus 0.01 pounds salt
Fry sauce
Minus 2 ounces fry sauce
Coke
Minus 16 ounces coke
Coke
Minus 16 ounces coke
The admin terminal would be able to do the following items:
Add new ingredient item,
Add new menu item,
Edit existing inventory of items (add-to inventory),
Display and print inventory order form,
Remove lost food from inventory (example: 1 hamburger falls on the floor and is thrown away - so 1 unit hamburger patty will need to be removed from the inventory and the cost of the hamburger patty will need to be added to the ledger for lost food),
Print report of all income/costs of restaurant,
Print report of all items currently in inventory,
Balance employee cash drawers and safe drawer (equivalent to a cash drawer, but it is the overall balance for the restaurant - employee cash drawers can buy/sell cash to/from the safe drawer).
Transfer money between employee cash drawers and the safe drawer and the bank (selling to bank just deducts the cash from the safe drawer balance).
Print reports of cash in restaurant and what has been sold to/from bank.
If cost constraints allow - the admin station would be able to manage employee timekeeping, add/remove employees from database, and the cashier station would be able to handle employee punch in/punch out,
