Tutorial: simulation in the hospitality industry

This tutorial article addresses the use of simulation in the hospitality industry, in particular the use of simulation in the fast food restaurant industry. Although the application of simulation to any system follows the same basic series of steps in an iterative fashion, there are unique aspects of the fast food restaurant industry that must be addressed when applying simulation to that industry's needs. In particular in the data collection, model building and in the validation steps there seem to be somewhat unique problems due to the wide variability of the same restaurant in different locations. Another aspect that is addressed is the use of simulation in one of two ways, either as a planning tool at a central location in a particular company versus a field based tool. All in all simulation is just coming into widespread use in this industry and will be a valuable analysis tool for an industry with wide variability among its various components.