By Kylie Macallister
Correspondent
While the Lion's Den in the Student Center may be highly approved amongst many of the College's students, most of its dining options undeniably have one thing in common–an excessive wait time.
The wait time in the “Stud” is far less intense during the slower hours of business. However, during the busier hours of the day, such as the lunch and dinner rush, the wait can be extreme. Because of this, it can be incredibly difficult or frustrating for students to grab food in a time crunch.
"When it's not busy, it's not bad, but sometimes it's frustrating if you're just getting out of class," said Ryan Gensch, a sophomore marketing major.
While many students try to suppress their frustration by acknowledging that the workers are presumably being bombarded with multiple orders at once, it still is incredibly inconvenient for them to wait such an excessive amount of time for a single order.
"I'm not blaming the workers because I get why it takes awhile and they're doing the best they can,” said Emily Danyo, a sophomore marketing major. “But I also don't think students should have to wait up to thirty minutes to get their food either," said Danyo.
Gensch and Danyo aren't the only students who feel this way. I conducted a survey on campus asking students for their opinions regarding the wait time at the Stud. One of the questions I asked students was how satisfied they were with the wait time in the Stud on a scale of one to ten — one being highly unsatisfied and 10 being highly satisfied. I found that 85% of the eight students surveyed rated their satisfaction at or below a five, with the highest rating being a seven.
One reason for this excessive wait time has to do with how the employees are tasked with making the food. For instance, when a student orders from somewhere, such as OBC Grill and SubConnection, the workers receive their orders on a small printed ticket listing how the student wants their order. However, due to the tickets’ small sizes, it can be incredibly difficult for the employees to read each order, which often slows down the process.
Another reason for this wait time is due to the fact that these tickets are easy to lose because of their small size and the quantity of tickets being printed at a time. In the same survey from earlier, results showed that 62% of respondents who have ordered from either OBCgrill or SubConnections have experienced their orders being lost at least once.
Other food businesses that also take their orders through kiosk screens, such as Wawa and McDonald's, use expeditor screens to combat the limitations of printed tickets. An expeditor screen is a display screen typically found in the kitchen or deli area of a food business that projects customer orders onto a screen rather than a ticket.
The text on the screens is much larger than that of the current tickets being used, which would make it easier for employees to read the orders. Some expeditor screens, such as the ones used at Wawa, will even give detailed step-by-step instructions on how to make each order to improve accuracy.
Wawa also provides employees with expeditor screens that project up to three orders at a time. This way, employees are not overwhelmed by the number of orders on the screen while also being able to read the large print clearly.
Once the order is completed, employees can print out the order ticket, and the item will be removed from the screen, making room for a new order. The screens also prevent the tickets from being misplaced during the food-making process and provide employees with a button to re-project an order back on the screen in case of an accidental deletion or in case the printer does not work the first time.
It is important to note that it is difficult to estimate the cost of this change at this time, as there are a variety of monitor screens and display systems that all range in price. With that being said, if the cost is reasonable, there is no reason as to why printed tickets should not be replaced with display screens.
Implementing these screens will bring considerable change to the service at the Stud. Workers will also benefit from the installation of the system, as it would combat the hurdles of working with printed tickets. Most importantly, with a more efficient system like this one, students could receive their orders in a much more time-friendly manner.
