1Appendix C: Pizza Delivered Quickly (PDQ) Case Study[CULLED FROM WYSOCKI (2014)]BackgroundPizza Delivered Quickly (PDQ) is a local chain (40 stores) of eat-in and home delivery pizzastores. Recently PDQ has lost 30 percent of sales revenue due mostly to a drop in its homedelivery business. It attributes this solely to its major competitor who recently promoted aprogram that guarantees 45-minute delivery service from order entry to home delivery. PDQadvertises one-hour delivery. PDQ currently uses computers for in-store operations and theusual business functions, but otherwise is not heavily dependent upon software systems tohelp receive, process, and home deliver customers’ orders. Pepe Ronee, Supervisor ofComputer Operations, has been charged with developing a software application to identify“pizza factory” locations and create the software system needed to operate them. Incommissioning this project, Dee Livery, the president, said to pull out all the stops. She furtherstated that the future of PDQ depends on this project. She wants you to lead a the team toinvestigate an option to deliver the pizza unbaked and “ready for the oven” in 30 minutes orless or deliver it pre-baked in 45 minutes or less. These pizza factories would not have anyretail space. Their only function will be to receive orders, prepare, and deliver the pizzas. Thefactory location nearest the customer’s location will receive the order from a central orderingfacility, process, and deliver the order within 30 or 45 minutes of order entry depending onwhether the customer orders their pizza ready for the oven or already baked. Pepe hasidentified six software applications for the solution as indicated below to aim in yourassignment.SW-1: Pizza Factory Locator SubsystemThe first is a software subsystem to find pizza factory locations. It is not known how many suchfactories will be needed nor where they should be located. The software subsystem will haveto determine that. Clearly this subsystem is a very complex application. The goal can be clearlydefined, but even then, the solution will not be at all obvious. This subsystem will have to use avery sophisticated modeling tool. The requirements, functionality, and features are not at allobvious. Some of the solution can probably be envisioned, but clearly the whole solution iselusive at this early stage. Exactly how to model it is not known at the outset. It will have to bediscovered as the development project is underway.SW-2: Order Entry SubsystemThe second is an order entry subsystem to support store and factory operations. Telephoneorders will come to a single location, be taken there, and then be routed to the appropriatestore or factory electronically. This system focuses on routine business functions and should beeasily defined. Off-the-shelf commercial software may be a big part of the final solution tosupport store and factory operations. This subsystem can utilize commercial off the shelf(COTS) order entry software.2SW-3: Order Submit SubsystemThis subsystem will direct the order to a store, factory, or pizza van. The logistics for makingthis assignment are not at all clear, and subsystem design will be complex.SW-4: Logistics SubsystemThis subsystem is the most complex of the six subsystems. It will require a holistic view of theentire PDQ system. Its complexity arises from the fact that the pizza vans are a mobileproduction and delivery facility. So the assignment of an order to a pizza van must take intoaccount where the van is likely to be when it is time for order delivery.SW-5: Routing SubsystemThis software application will be a routing subsystem for the delivery trucks. This application isstraightforward and will probably involve having GPS systems installed in all the deliverytrucks.SW-6: Inventory Management SubsystemThe final application will be an inventory control system to manage inventories at all storesand factories and automatically reorder from the single vendor PDQ has been using since itfirst started in the business. PDQ has been informed by its vendor that it can earn discounts byusing the automatic reordering feature. This application should also be a COTS application.These applications are obviously very different software development projects requiring verydifferent approaches. The Pizza Factory Locator subsystem will be a very sophisticatedmodeling tool. The requirements, functionality, and features are not at all obvious. Some ofthe solution can probably be envisioned, but clearly the whole solution is elusive at this earlystage. Exactly how it will do modeling is not known at the outset. It will have to be discoveredas the development project is underway. The Order Entry subsystem can utilize COTS orderentry software that will have to be enhanced at the front end to direct the order to the closestfactory and provide driving directions for delivery and other fulfillment tasks on the back end.The requirements, functionality, and features of this subsystem may be problematic.Your AssignmentThe six subsystems that make up the PDQ solution may each require a different projectmanagement approach. You will use knowledge from various units of the course and relateddiscussions incorporated that require strategy formation and other decisions in order to findand maintain a best-fit project management approach.The project is about to commence, and you are conferring with your team members to decideon reporting requirements and frequency. Your first task is to take into account the3stakeholders in the project and what their need might be. Make reference to the backgroundstatement for input you will need to answer the following questions:1. Who are the people that you need to hear from to determine whether they are satisfied withyour progress on the project?2. How will you get information from your team and distribute it to other stakeholders for theproject?The entire PDQ project could be viewed as a program consisting of several dependent projects.Once the component parts of the project have been identified through the initial changes,including those introduced by Dee, the project might be represented as shown in Figure 1.Figure 1: Systems-Level Solution for PDQSome Hints:This can be viewed as a program consisting of six projects – one for each subsystem – there area number of ways to approach finding the solution.The Order Entry and Inventory Management Subsystems should be available as commercialoff-the-site-shelf products. A Request for Information (RFI) or Request for Proposal (RFP) canreach that conclusion quickly. The other subsystems are quite different.All four require some form of heuristic algorithms as part of their solutions. The difficulty witheach of these is that order preparation can be at one of three sites. The stores and the pizzafactories are fixed in place, whereas the pizza vans are moving locations. The same movinglocation problems introduces uncertainties and complexities in the Routing subsystem. Sothese four subsystems are highly interdependent, and an optimal solution may not be possible.That is why a heuristics approach may be the best approach.As far as a portfolio approach is concerned, this could be viewed as two separate submissions.One would be for the Order Entry, Order Submit, and Inventory Management Subsystems.Together they provide an operational solution for the current store situation. The other wouldbe the Logistics and Routing projects that deal with the uncertainties and complexities addedby line moving component – the pizza vans that prepare pizzas and that can also deliver pizzas.Pizza FactoryLocatorOrder Entry Logistics Order Submit RoutingInv. Mgmt.4Even that solution could be done in stages. The first stage would be incorporate the pizzafactories as just another fixed location for preparation. The second stage would add the pizzavans as moving preparation locations.The Adaptive Project Framework works well regardless of the approach taken.3. Construct the “As Is” and the “To Be” business processes for the Order Entry subsystem. Youmay have to make some assumptions about the “As Is” process, but just state yourassumptions and move on.Following is an example of an Order Entry case for the PDQ that you can use to help youanswer the preceding questions.Basic Flow of Placing an order• This use case begins when the actor indicates they want to place an order.• The system requests order information (coupon information)• The actor provides valid order information• The actor indicated that the order information is complete• The system validates the address (additional details)• The system prices the order• The system displays the complete order with the price• The actor confirms the order• The system assigns the order to the appropriate preparation location• The system prioritizes the order• The use case ends when the system prioritizes the store orders.Further Hints on Order Entry SubsystemThe requirements of the Order Entry subsystem were gathered through a series of previouscases. Client participation was exemplary even though it was the first time PDQ employeeswere going to engage in such an activity. There was an online Order Entry Screen, socustomers could go directly to the system to enter their Order and pay with credit card. Thatwas easily defined. A one-stop entry was created for telephone orders that replaced the needfor customers to call the store that preferred to use. The order would then be routed to thelogistics subsystem and assigned to the appropriate production facility (store, pizza factory, orpizza van). The Order Entry subsystem was estimated to require 32 days for development,testing and deployment. That completion time was firm, because an outside consultingcompany had been hired to develop the logistics subsystem beginning on the Order Entrysubsystem, and work on it could not begin until the Order Entry subsystem was deployed.Pepe discussed the criticality of the schedule with the order entry project team and the client.He proposed a management reserve of three days to accommodate unexpected changerequests.Having management reserve is an effective insurance policy to protect the start time of relatedsystems. In its absence, there is a strong likelihood of schedule slippage being passed on to thedependent systems. Without a management reserve, the logistics subsystem in this examplewould likely be in distressed condition even before it started.54. For the Order Entry subsystem, define an early-warning Schedule Performance Index (SPI)tracking metric with trigger values and supporting graphic display.5. Despite the team’s heroic efforts to keep Order Entry subsystem on schedule, it has fallenbehind and used the management reserve, you are now expected to be two days late. TheLogistics subsystem can no longer start on schedule, and the contractors are booked to start.What are you going to do?6. Suppose you had six independent teams, each working on a different subsystem. Given whatyou know about this project, how would you structure the project team? What are thestrengths and weaknesses of your choice? What are some potential risk, and how would youplan for them?7. Generate the Resources Breakdown Schedule (RBS) for managing the InventoryManagement subsystem and choose an appropriate Project Life Cycle Model (PLCM) you willuse. Rank-order the specific models from best-fit to least-fit and state your rationale for theranking. Select from the Linear, Incremental, Iterative and Adaptive PMLC model. Be specific.8. Which subsystems would you develop using Agile model? Be specific as to which model youwould choose and why. List any advantages and disadvantages that will results from yourdecision.9. Generate the RBS for the PDQ factory location software application. Comment on themissing or partially defined functions and features. In generating the RBS consider suchquestions as these: How many factory locations should there be? Where should they be?What criteria should be used to evaluate a location? Justify the number of delivery trucks willbe needed?Hints on Logistic SubsystemThe logistics subsystem is very complex. Although it may not seem obvious at first, thecomplexity begins with the goal statement. You probably prefer a goal statement that sayssomething about the time from order entry to order fulfillment. Dou you want to minimize thistime? That is certainly what the pizza customer has in mind. Or would you rather minimize thetime from when the order was ready to be delivered until the time it is delivered? That iscertainly what PDQ has in mind for delivery of a quality order. Your choice for PMLC model touse is between APF and ISNPIRE. Ether model will work just fine.The choice might depend on which approach the client is most comfortable with.10. What other projects within the PDQ Case study would you recommend should benefit fromthe PMLC models in the course?
