In-Flight Catering Management System as a Business Process Optimization for Air Terminal Services (Fiji) PTE Limited

Abstract

Air Terminal Services (Fiji) PTE Limited provides in-flight catering services to all customer airlines that dock at the Nadi International Airport. The initial process deals with capturing the meal figures from all the customer airlines and distributing the information to the kitchen staff for meal preparation. The study evaluates the processes involved in the data collection phase and relates them to efficiency and productivity and as well as identifies the issues faced by the staff. It is evident that even though technology is used in the data collection phase; the effectiveness is not visible as human intervention is still necessary to collect, consolidate and distribute the information. Multiple sources of information are also another contributing factor that limits efficiency. Given that the means of communication are through emails, phone calls and, text messages; constant checking and verification is required which results in unnecessary time consumption and is prone to human error. This further delays in communicating the information to the ground staff thus limiting efficiency and affecting timely preparation of meals and adjusting to amendments. A software solution is proposed that will be able to handle the current data collection and distribution phase. The software can be used by the organization and the customer airlines as a standard means for communicating meal figures. This approach will mitigate the factor of consolidating and distributing the meal figures to the ground staff thus increasing efficiency and optimizing the business process to achieve the organizational objective.