Flowchart Memo
A bottleneck occurs in the cinema auditorium when multiple films let out all at the same time. As there is only about 20 to 25 minute gap between the end of the film and the start of the next showing, ushers have a limited amount of time to get into each auditorium following the end of the film to clean it so as to allow patrons to be seated. When several films let out all at once, ushers do not have sufficient time to clean out each auditorium so that it is ready for the next set of patrons. They will focus on cleaning 1 or 2 auditoriums, but meanwhile a large group of patrons will be forced to wait in the lobby, causing a bottleneck in the lobby area, where it becomes difficult for other customers to get where they are going, whether it is to an auditorium that is open or to the concession stand where they desire to buy concessions or to the ticket booth so that they can buy tickets to a show. This bottleneck problem is depicted in Flowchart 1.
Even with effective crowd control measures in place, the large group of patrons can quickly become a problem because of overflow and the way that bottleneck can deter patrons from seeking to purchase items at the concession stand, which is where the cinema derives its main source of profits. Decreased sales at the concession stand lead to decreased revenues...
Busy times of the day and evening should be accompanied by high revenue at the concession stand, but bottleneck causes patrons to turn away from the stand because of the way the crowds overflow the crowd control measures and create veritable chaos in the lobby. Few patrons want to navigate that chaos and as the concession stand is not as busy as...
…discernible difference in the bottleneck issue has been measured, we could further tweak the pilot project by staggering the films in a different way or we could abandon the pilot project all together. I feel that two weeks time should be sufficient to see whether this solution would work or not. Considering that we are in the busy season right now with many people coming out to the cinema to see their favorite films, now is a good time to implement this project.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share these ideas with you, and I look forward to your response. I think it would be a great way to see if we can make this cinema run more efficiently by solving the bottleneck issue in the lobby that has been a problem all summer long. Please see the flowcharts below as an example of what I have developed.
Flowchart 1. Current Bottleneck.
Flowchart 2. Staggered Film…
