Title: Machi-POS - point of sales system for restaurant district

Authors: Shimpei Matsumoto; Tomoko Kashima; Takanori Matsui; Kazuaki Nakamura; Tatsuo Matsutomi

Addresses: Faculty of Applied Information Science, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, 2-1-1 Miyake, Saeki-ku, Hiroshima 731-5193, Japan. ' Faculty of Engineering, Kinki University, 1 Takaya Umenobe, Higashi-Hiroshima City, Hiroshima 739-2116, Japan. ' Division of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Eng-S4, 2-1, Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. ' K Design Factory, Morimachi 358-7, Oita City, Oita 870-0127, Japan. ' Faculty of Engineering, Kinki University, 1 Takaya Umenobe, Higashi-Hiroshima City, Hiroshima 739-2116, Japan

Abstract: The authors have participated in an activity for town development named 'Machi-POS' which is a research project to develop a service by totally supporting management of independent small restaurants within a certain area. As a part effort of Machi-POS, this study firstly develops an inventory management system cooperating with POS system and web-based automatic menu order feature. The system will contribute to reduce the opportunity loss, and will make the improvement of service quality and sales possible at lower labour cost. The system also provides POS services cheaply and efficiently by using common devices. This study makes it available for two or more restaurants in restaurant district, and gives additional function to support safety and security of foods. The multiple-user capability enables restaurants to share inventory information to each other. Therefore, reducing disposal loss will be further promoted because overstock or shortage is adjustable between restaurants with Machi-POS.

Keywords: POS; food service industry; restaurant management; knowledge sharing; web based menus; inventory management; hospitality; agricultural information systems; point of sales; independent restaurants; small restaurants; restaurant districts; automatic menu orders; service quality; labour costs; food safety; food security; multiple users; information sharing; overstocking; shortages.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKWI.2012.050284

International Journal of Knowledge and Web Intelligence, 2012 Vol.3 No.2, pp.130 - 162

Published online: 04 Sep 2014 *

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