Trade-Offs and Maximizing Efficiency in a Fast Food Restaurant
Design and analyze a fast food restaurant from a systems engineering point-of-view.Copyright 2011 Evan-Amos, Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McDonalds-French-Fries-Plate.jpg
Students are introduced to the idea of improving efficiency by examining a setting that is familiar to many teenagers—fast food restaurants. More specifically, they learn about the concepts of trade-offs, constraints, increasing efficiency and systems thinking. They consider how to improve the efficiency of a restaurant that is struggling, through delegating tasks, restructuring employee responsibilities and revising a floor plan, all while working within limitations and requirements. Finally, students summarize and defend their suggested changes in argumentative essays.
Students from backgrounds typically underrepresented in the engineering field often feel that they lack engineering experiences and familiarity. This activity was designed to help students make connections between their everyday experiences and engineering. Engineers seek to represent diverse communities, businesses and needs. Like engineers, students are tasked with identifying strengths and weaknesses in an existing system. Students are introduced to the concepts of drafting and trade-offs when they revise a floor plan. Then, as in real-world engineering, students are challenged to explain and defend their improved designs in argumentative essays.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Critically analyze the efficiency of systems in everyday situations.
- Evaluate and redesign the functionality of a floor plan.
- Make decisions after considering trade-offs.
- Defend design decisions through argumentative writing.