Canteen Ordering System for Unilever
Submitted by
Siddhant Sawhney
Date of Submission
28th August 2022
Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2
Stakeholders 4
Problem Definition and Solution 5
Advantages and Objectives 5
Advantages of the Canteen Ordering System 5
Objectives of the Canteen Management System 6
Existing System 6
Proposed System 7
Scope using use case diagram (UML) 8
Scope using context diagram 8
Main Features 9
Scope 9
In Scope 9
Out of Scope 9
Activity Diagram for the System 10
ER Diagram for the System 11
Preconditions and Triggers 11
Preconditions 11
Triggers 11
Business Requirements 12
Business objective 1 12
Business objective 2 12
Business objective 3 12
Business objective 4 12
Functional Requirements 12
Nonfunctional Requirements 13
System Requirement 13
Usability 13
Environments 13
Wireframes 14
Registration 14
Login 15
Food Ordering 16
Stakeholders
Actors What they can do on the software created
Employees ● One-time registration for using the application and enrolling for direct
payroll deduction of food items ordered for the month
● Employees/Customers can order specific meal(s) online before 11AM
● Modify the order before they confirm their choices. No option to cancel
once the order is confirmed.
● View their order history and the amount spent till date for the month.
● Opt to have their meal in the canteen by booking available slots
● Provide feedback on the quality of food, the delivery and the usability
of the application itself
Canteen ● Create and list the menu and inventory for each menu item for the day
Manager ● Create menu from a list of previously listed items
● List and modify the slots for in-house dining in the canteen
● View consolidated list of the quantity of items ordered for the day
● Summary of number of people who prefer to eat in the canteen and of
those who want the order to be delivered on their desk
● Option to download and print or digitally share the consolidated list
with delivery/in-house eating preferences to the chef and the delivery
person
Delivery ● View the items to be delivered organized by time slot and floor/location
Person ● Mark an item as delivered
Payroll ● Obtain a date wise list of Employees registered/deregistered on the
system system
● View the summary of the meals ordered and cost to be charged to
every employee
● Deduct total cost of items ordered from the employee’s salary through
the payroll processing system
● Mark monthly deductions as settled on the system
● Manually modify details in case of disputes
Management Monitor the following Key Performance Indicators(KPIs) of the initiative -
● Number of employees using the system
● Employee satisfaction based on feedback received from th system
● Reduction in canteen overcrowding instances
● Costs saved due to reduction in food wastage
● Employee work hours saved
● Most ordered dishes
● Daily Sales
● Total monthly earnings
● Order forecasting i.e. a prediction of which items will be ordered and
when they will be ordered.
Admin ● Control access permissions for Employees, Canteen Manager, Delivery
person
Problem Definition and Solution
For the canteen
● Overcrowding and mismanagement of food orders
● Wastage of leftover (non-preferred) food items
● Lack of data on food preferences and patterns leading to poor menu planning and
inventory management
For the employees
● Wastage of productive man hours
● Unavailability of preferred food items
● Potential anxiety due to food shortages arising from rush hour orders
● Eventual inflexibility in lunch hours
● Possible frustration due to waiting time during lunch hours
Solution
A canteen ordering system which offers -
● Employees can order meals from a set menu for the day and provide for an option to get
their meals delivered at their workstation at a preferred time or pre-book time slots in the
canteen. It also allows them to get their food order amounts directly deducted from their
salary
● Canteen Management to pre-set a daily menu and close out orders at 11AM everyday. It
allows them to open up specific eating time slots for those who prefer to dine in the canteen
● Payroll department a summary of orders by an employee over the month, the amount for
which can be deducted from their respective salary
Advantages and Objectives
Advantages of the Canteen Ordering System
For the Employees
● Ensures they get their most preferred food items from the menu
● Reduce wait times, plan their meal timing better and also have the option to have their
meal delivered to their workstation at their preferred time slot
● Not have to pay for their food daily but have the consolidated amount from all their
orders deducted directly from their salary
For the Canteen Management
● Define a preset menu for the day and plan inventory based on received orders
● Manage canteen crowd across the day better through scheduling available slots
● Understand employee food preferences better through data on ordering patterns and
curate a better menu
● Manage deliveries better through a consolidated delivery items list and time slots
For the management
● Facilitate a better employee experience and meal satisfaction through reduced wait
times, better food options, eating time flexibility and lesser decision making load
● Reduce costs incurred due to food waste
● Potential employee productivity as an outcome of outputs of the application
Objectives of the Canteen Management System
● Reducing the time taken by employees for having lunch by 50%
● Achieve at least 15% reduction in operating costs for the canteen through an improved
cost and operational efficiency within 12 months of initial release. This should lead to
lesser manpower being required to run canteen operations.
● At least 30% reduction in food wastage in the first 6 months of going live
Existing System
● All employees are currently required to come to the canteen to order and eat their lunch
● Most employees prefer to take their lunch between 12 noon to 1PM leading to a huge
rush in the two canteens which only have the capacity to cater to a combined maximum
of 300 employees at a time.
● Out of the approximately 60 minutes spent by employees to go and come back from
lunch, almost 30-35 minutes (>50%) is spent in waiting in line to collect their food
and get a table to sit and eat.
● The high canteen rush also results in high elevator waiting times which eats up 10
minutes of the employees.
● Therefore, the actual time spent by an employee to eat their lunch is only 10 minutes,
which is approximately only 18% of the overall time of their actual lunch break taken
by the employees
● In all of this, employees don’t always get their choice of food they want because the
canteen runs out of certain items. The canteen also wastes a significant quantity of food
by throwing away what is not purchased.
The existing system is represented using a flowchart below -
Proposed System
The proposed canteen management system -
● Introduces a web-based application which requires employees to order their meals from
a daily menu set by the canteen management. Orders need to be placed latest by 11AM.
● Provides the consolidated order summary to the canteen management at the cut off
time. Based on this, the exact quantity per food item to be cooked is communicated to
the chef.
● Allows employees to view and reserve available canteen slots to have their meal without
the long wait times or opt to have their meal delivered to their workstation at a preferred
time slot.
● Rather than daily per order payments, the consolidated sum of order amount per
employee is sent to payroll and is deducted from the employee’s salary.
● Employees who want to eat at their workstation get their meals delivered by a
designated delivery person at their preferred time
Scope using use case diagram (UML)
Scope using context diagram
Main Features
Below are the main features of the system which needs to be developed:
1. Provision for employee registration and login
2. Provision to create daily menu and add items from master lists
3. Provision to create and select canteen seat slots
4. Display the day’s menu, the cost of each item and an option to add quantity per dish
5. Automatic disabling of further orders at 11AM everyday
6. Employees can modify their final order after adding items to their cart
7. Once the order is confirmed, employee cannot modify or cancel the order
8. An automated summary of food orders and quantity to be prepared for each food item
to be sent to Canteen manager at the cut off time
9. Floor wise and time slot wise delivery list for the delivery person
10. Option to mark order as delivered for the delivery person
11. A feedback submission mechanism for employees
12. Integration with payroll system to deduct monthly order amount from employee salary
Scope
In Scope
● Registration and login module
● Ordering module
● Daily Menu setting and modification
● Scheduling module
● Automated Employee wise order amount summaries to payroll system
● Delivery management module
● Feedback module
● Reporting module
● Descriptive analytics module
Out of Scope
● Food vendor management
● Predictive analytics module
● Order cancellation
● Out of stock notification
● Chef and cook management
● Kitchen ingredients inventory management
● Current canteen load status
● Online ordering system implementation at locations apart of Unilever UK Office
Activity Diagram for the System
ER Diagram for the System
Preconditions and Triggers
Preconditions
● User/Employee has an account and is registered with the Salary reduction scheme
● Canteen Manager has an account for the Canteen System
● Delivery person should have a login to the system
● Delivery person should be trained on the use of the application
● The chef should be comfortable with the 1 hour window to prepare the required food
● The menu should be up at least 2 hours before cut off time to allow employees
enough time to order their food
Triggers
● Employee wanting to place their food order
● The manager wanting to get a list of summarized orders for the kitchen at 11:00AM
● The chef needing the summarized list by 11:05 AM to have sufficient time to cook
● The delivery person needing to pick up the meals and details of where to deliver
them
Business Requirements
Business objective 1
Reduce canteen food wastage by a minimum of 30% within 6 months following first release.
Scale: Value of food thrown away each month by examining the canteen inventory
● Previous - 25% wasted
● Must plan for: Less than 15%
Business objective 2
Reduce canteen operating costs by 15% within 12 months, following initial release.
Business objective 3
Increase average effective work time by 30 minutes per employee per day, within 3 months.
Business objective 4
By making the ordering process automated and by delivering the food to the user's workstation,
the canteen will be able to operate with lesser manpower.
Functional Requirements
● Interfaces
o Online website in the company subdomain
o Mobile application
● Registration and login module
o Employee registration screen
o Employee verification - only Unilever employees should be able to sign up with
their employee id
o Login Screen
o Sign up screens for different types of users
o Email based password recovery
● Ordering module
o Menu page with per item cost - add/remove items
o Modify quantities per items
o Order summary, total amount
o Location preference - Canteen vs Workstation
o Time slot booking
o Order confirmation screen
● Automated ordering disabled functionality at 11AM on a workdays
User specific interfaces and functionality
● Canteen manager
o Food items management
o Cost management
o Mark items as not available
o Canteen slot management
● Users/Employees
o Profile
o Workstation location(s)
o Reset password
● Delivery person
o Mark order as delivered
● Payroll department
o Order summary for salary adjustments
● Admin
o Manage user entity types
o Create master database lists for menu items, canteen schedules and delivery
personnel
Nonfunctional Requirements
● Usability: User friendly system with self-explanatory screens
● Scalable: Ability to serve 1500 users
● Performance: Light and fast
System Requirement
● Opt-in for detailed feedback calls
● Low-maintenance and light backend architecture
● Orders to be archived after a set time period
● Should be able to sustain simultaneous user loads of up to 2000 users
● Web page design should be light for quick loading
Usability
● User friendly and self-explanatory user interface. Efforts to be made towards making the
iInterface resemble commonly available food ordering apps to enable cognitive recall
● Web Page accessibility to be network agnostic
Change Management
● Email newsletter and notice board announcements of discontinuation of regular canteen
system at least one month before go live
● QR code based system for users to access webpage on the day of go live
Environments
● Any mainstream tech stack which integrates well with the Unilever tech stack for
backward compatibility
● Mobile interface can also be setup using a low code off the shelf app builder for quick
prototyping
Wireframes
Registration
Login
Food Ordering
