Requirements

Individual Requirement

The end objective is normally to sell the customer something. That something is specified as a customer requirement.

An example of a customer requirement in the hospitality sector might be a formal dinner for a group of people.

The requirement for a particular customer is selected from a set of template requirements. It is then refined to meet the customer's precise needs.

Taking the formal dinner example, a selection of main courses, a choice of wines and various extras might be provided. The seating arrangements might also be optional.

These items are selected individually as required to build up the complete customer's requirement. As these selections are made, the total cost of the requirement is adjusted automatically.

The completed requirement forms the basis of the customer's order.

The customer's requirement can also be used internally, to provide the cooking instructions, to specify the table and room layout, or to determine the staffing requirements.

Events

The templates that form the basis of each customer requirement are referred to as events. Each event consists of a number of services and each service consists of a number of items.

For example, a range of dinner menus might be on offer, each with a different price per head. Each of these menus is held as a separate event.

The user has only to select the event to obtain all of the related information, including the menu, any optional main courses, the wine list, the extras, and so on.

The user then enters the details of the particular requirement, such as the date, the start time, the number of attendees, and so on.

Services & Items

Each event is made up of a number of services. In the dinner menu example, the menu itself, including any optional main courses, is one service, the wine list another and the extras yet another.

Each service consists of a number of items. For example, an item in the wine list is simply a priced bottle of a particular wine. The user enters the quantity of each bottle, which causes the total cost of the selected wines to be recalculated together with the total cost of the requirement.

This template structure provides the user with a very quick and flexibility way of setting up the requirement and then adapting it to the customer's needs. It also enables the information to be easily extracted and processed for management information purposes.