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Food Production Forecasting in Six Commercial Foodservice Operations: a Pilot Study

Kansas State University

Judy Miller

Kansas State University

Challenges related to operations managementconsistentlyconfrontfoodservice managers. It is becoming more important for managers to devise time-saving managerial techniques to decrease costs and increase profits. Planning is the managerial function that drives all other operations. Food production forecasting is an integral part of planning. The purpose of this research was to determine current forecasting techniques used by commercial foodservice operations. Personal inter views with six managers determined operational information and menu complexity, as well as current forecasting techniques. All managers reported forecasting food production on a daily basis. Eighty-three percent of the operations used computer systems to aid in forecasting. The amount of time needed to generate a 7-day forecast was 5 to 45 minutes. Foodservice managers relied most heavily upon historical data to generate forecasts. Results of this study indicated that commercial foodservice operations have begun to utilize technology to increase operational effectiveness.

Key Words: Key Words: forecasting • foodservice • simple moving average • expo nential smoothing • computer software.

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