University
of Northern Iowa

Dining Services uses FoodPro®

by D. J. Power and C. L. Fletcher

University students like to eat! They want large quantities, high quality
and a variety of menu items. Meeting student dining needs within cost
constraints requires sophisticated planning. In 1980, the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) in Cedar Falls, Iowa
implemented its first computerized system for inventory management and meal
planning. The system named FOCUS was intended to improve consistency between
dining operations, provide standard recipes and provide cost information for
decision making. Before that time, there were no standard recipes. Each
individual cook used her/his own recipes. Consequently, students complained
about the quality of products from one dining center to another. One facility
had a great chili recipe because it had more meat in it, but another facility
prepared chili with more beans. Using FOCUS daily menus were planned centrally
from standard menus. Also, the amount of food that was prepared by each
facility was determined centrally. FOCUS is no longer in use at the University of Northern Iowa. A newer system called FoodPro® was officially installed at the University of Northern Iowa in February 1999. Aurora
Information Systems develops and markets FoodPro®.

FoodPro® is an integrated software application
with modules for all of the major tasks in the food service business including
forecasting and precosting, menu planning, food
purchasing, production and inventory control, catering, nutritive analysis, a
point-of-sale interface, post cost reporting and financial analysis. The University of Northern Iowa is using the current FoodPro® Release 1.7. UNI has a Software Maintenance
Agreement that provides telephone support, program fixes and continuing
enhancement and improvement of FoodPro. Software
enhancements are included as part of Aurora’s
Maintenance Agreement at no additional cost. FoodPro is
updated in an annual release that has been reviewed and approved by its user
group. Most update releases include both new features and improved ways of
performing current functions.

FoodPro at the University of Northern Iowa

Aurora
provided UNI with a detailed implementation and training schedule that ran
about 12 weeks. Aurora’s
tasks included converting files to the new system, installing the database
system and FoodPro software. Jerry Cully, President
of Aurora, made 3 visits to UNI over the 12 weeks working through the
installation and training process. UNI was responsible for installing hardware,
printers, and Internet access. One difference between the former computerized
system and FoodPro was that the input work was
decentralized. Instead of sending the input information to a central office,
computer workstations were needed and used at all dining locations. This
allowed for more control at the unit level and faster, accurate and more
flexible information was provided. Currently, there are about 50 UNI staff
members who use FoodPro for some aspect of their job.
A web-based Power Point presentation of screen shots from UNI's
implementation of FoodPro is available by following
the link --> click here.

The
managers of each operation are the key players in utilizing Food Pro. They
direct developing the menu mix, entering the recipe information, evaluating and
interpreting the information, updating the information, supporting the staff in
utilizing the FoodPro information and ensuring the
information is gathered accurately that is fed back into the system. The
technology coordinators, food store manager, assistant directors and associate
director provide important support for the unit managers in utilizing the
system. What decision support does FoodPro provide
managers? According to Mona Milius, Associate
Director of Residence/Dining, "FoodPro provides
excellent support for menu costing, menu development, inventory control information,
and feedback about how well we are following our plan.”

Who provides technical support for FoodPro at UNI?
What support is provided? The university employs two part-time technology
coordinators that support the computer systems used by the dining services
which includes FoodPro. Most of the FoodPro functions are distributed and work is completed
in-unit. There are some global functions provided centrally – calendar
preparation, scheduling of weekly system processes, standardized reporting and
some menu and recipe work. The Purchasing Coordinator centrally maintains
global inventory vendor information. Two part-time staff provide
a “back-up” in case someone is sick or otherwise unable to perform
their job on a given day.

The staff at Aurora Information Systems provides immediate assistance for
occasional system questions or issues. Phone support is available 8:30 AM
– 5 PM Eastern time, Monday - Friday. They also
have the ability to access the system from their location to help solve
problems. The consensus is that Aurora
staff "do a great job of listening to our
requests and ideas and integrate those ideas into later upgrades." UNI has
purchased custom modification in a few situations where UNI had unique
circumstances. Aurora
also conducts a user conference each year to discuss what are needed
improvements, as well as what they have coming out with the new upgrade.

FoodPro at UNI is linked to a major supplier,
Martin Bros. Distributing Co. (www.martinsnet.com).
How does the computer link to Martin Brothers work? Orders are sent directly to
Martin Brothers via the Internet. There is a script that runs on the FoodPro server that pulls a file for each location of items
scheduled to be ordered that day. In the FoodPro
system, order groups are developed that list items and their specified order,
deliver and use dates. Managers have the opportunity to adjust orders until
1:00 pm on the order date. At this time the script runs, sending the list to
Martin Brothers and not allowing any additional automated order changes. At
1:30 pm each day, a confirmation is emailed to managers and assistant managers
listing account names and total number of cases ordered. This is used as a
checkpoint that the orders were successfully received by Martin Bros.
Distributing Co..

FoodPro® - The System

Aurora's FoodPro® is an integrated food production planning and
control system that provides support and control from raw food purchase through
production to financial analysis. It provides historical, as well as current
and projected data, in terms of food usage, costs, operating margins, and
service. FoodPro runs on a client supplied server of
modest size. The server itself is usually managed by the university’s IT
staff or even by the dining department itself. Jerry Cully, President of Aurora
Information Systems, notes "we have tried to develop the product for the
foodservice department and, although we take advantage of current technology,
we present the technology mostly in a food manager’s vernacular."

The FoodPro architecture is best described as
client/server and it is designed as a total departmental solution. This means
that the software is structured to parallel the sub-departments and functions
within a typical foodservice, i.e., menu planning, production, purchasing,
nutrition, accounting, etc. Further most of these functions can be organized by
the customer either centrally or by unit. Aurora Information Systems partners
with IBM Software. IBM’s UniVerse product is
the database manager that stores, accesses and manipulates data according to
instructions given from the FoodPro programs.
IBM’s RedBack Interactive Web presentation
software supports the real-time communication between individual department Web
pages and the FoodPro UniVerse
database. RedBack manages the user requests for and
the transfer of data to the Web page. Aurora
acts as the primary contractor in regard to these two products and coordinates
the involvement of its University customers with IBM. Even though the customer
contracts directly with IBM for their product support, Aurora generally provides the first line of
support for these IBM products. FoodPro® is
proprietary software bundled with the IBM products that offer platform
independence across Windows®, UNIX® or Linux® servers.

Fig. 1. FoodPro® opening screen.

FoodPro® system functions range from
forecasting to purchasing, menu planning and costing. Enhancement modules
include warehouse and inventory control, purchase order management, a POS
interface and sales reporting, nutritive analysis and a module called FoodPro On The Go! Using FoodPro the number of patrons expected at a meal or during
a meal period can be forecasted based on a historical database. The historical
forecast is refined by manual user adjustments and trend analysis. Operating
reports are provided for individual food service locations and summarized to
the departmental level. Operating reports summarize sales, product costs, and
any other operating expenses. Special events can be planned and coordinated
with the catered event function. The customer, date, menu, number of patrons,
and price are entered into the system. The catered event function pre-costs the
menu at the most recent or replacement purchase price, and then calculates and
stores the amount of raw food required to produce the menu for the number of
customers specified. Using FoodPro all recipes
required to produce a week's menus can be scaled or batched to yield the exact
number of portions required. All production requirements are summarized by the
production department, and a requisition is printed detailing the amounts of
raw food products to withdraw from storage areas. Recipes prepared internally
by commissary operations and production departments and similar recipes from
individual locations are combined and printed for the scheduled day and meal of
production.

The inventory control function calculates and prints the actual use of every
inventory item, the deviation from planned use (or shrinkage), the physical
ending inventory reported, and the dollar value of ending inventory. The
purchasing function calculates amounts to order from each vendor based on exact
menu needs, taking into account stock requirements, and individual vendor
delivery schedules. The Menu Planning Module determines in advance the cost of
serving any combination of menu offering and the resulting gross profit. All
cost computations are made on the latest purchase price using any recipe
specified. A menu modeling program allows food service managers to perform
"What if?" analysis for future planning purposes. A menu item cost
summary detailing product cost, gross margin, and gross margin variances also
helps managers in menu analysis.

According to Cully, "Although there are quite a number of competing
vendors, The CBORD Group Inc. and Computrition Inc.
are the two companies that most frequently go head-to-head with FoodPro. All three companies offer mature, robust products
and many differences are in philosophy rather than function. A particularly
important aspect of the FoodPro software is that it
generates most of the information required and the person using it needs only
to verify information – we call this entering-by-exception. For instance,
when forecasting the expected patron counts and portion forecasts are generated
based on past history and the manager makes changes only when necessary.
Likewise, orders to outside vendors are automatically generated based on
on-hand inventories, planned menus, open orders and vendors’ delivery
schedules. Transfers and invoices are not entered but are automatically
generated and are changed by exception. This philosophy greatly reduces
required data entry and increases accuracy." Cully feels "Aurora
Information Systems has provided a level of customer support beyond what is
normally experienced in the software industry. If fact many clients say that
the service levels of Aurora Information Systems exceed those of any vendor in
any industry that they deal with. This is due in part to segmentation where we
cater to only a small number of exclusive clients and everyone in our firm
understands the needs of each customer. While Aurora Information Systems is a
small business, it is dedicated to providing the best in Food Service software.
Aurora Information Systems assures each client that, in our case, our size adds
to our strength. Aurora Information Systems has a most unusual relationship
with our client base and our size insures that we offer the personal touch that
is seldom present with large vendors."

Aurora plans to release FoodPro®
1.8 at the annual Users Conference at the University of Arizona
in July 2005. FoodPro 1.8 will include enhancements
such as streamlining the bid analysis and ordering process, more new
“smart” programs that assist in the analysis of data collected
within FoodPro and a special emphasis on the catering
business. In addition to major changes in the existing FoodPro
Catering Module, which controls the “back office” functionality, Aurora is releasing a new
Catering Scheduling, Reporting and Billing Interface that is designed more for
the catering office rather than the kitchen. It is based on Microsoft’s
Outlook® and Exchange® and includes scheduling of events, assigning
tasks to complete and interdepartmental messaging. Also, as interdepartmental
charges are normally processed as transfer journal vouchers on the
university’s general ledger system there is a custom billing interference
to the university systems included as part of the product. Another new product
being released is called “FoodPro on the Go!”, which is an online ordering and information
exchange component for take-away, Pizza type delivery, Grab ‘n Go or
C-Store concepts. This provides the potential for higher sales revenues for the
department and greater convenience for their customers. According to Cully,
"future directions include more interfaces with supply chain vendors to
streamline the just-in-time ordering and receiving processes. We are also
adding a web-based catering ordering product that will allow university
departments and individuals to interact with and order from the catering
department online. It is anticipated that this will greatly reduce the labor
necessary to accommodate this ever increasing segment of business while
offering more flexibility to the food service customer."

Benefits

According to the Aurora Web site, "Effective planning and control will
result in accurate and timely purchasing, the reduction of waste, a more
productive operation, and better customer satisfaction through consistent
quality and better service."

UNI staff report many benefits of using FoodPro®.
Rialto Dining Center
manager Lisa Krausman noted FoodPro
provides, “Time savings in many elements including recipe adjustments,
ordering, analyzing menu costs, and more.” Rosie Lang, Manager of the Piazza Center,
said a major benefit is “Flexibility – it allows us to change menu
items, add to our orders, batch a different recipe amount, etc.” Cathy
Moore, Fresh Beginnings Bakery and Commissary manager, said, “FoodPro provides us cost controls. We can see what impact
each ingredient has on the total cost of a product. We can then make decisions
on whether this is affordable or not.”

Summary

Computer support for UNI Dining Services has become entrenched in how work
is performed at UNI Dining Services and no one even speculates about doing
without the planning, transaction processing, control and decision support
provided by the FoodPro application. In many ways a
technology partnership has developed between the University of Northern Iowa
Dining Service and the software vendor, Aurora
Information Systems.

About University
of Northern Iowa Dining
Services

The University of Northern Iowa Dining services administrative offices
are located in Redeker
Center on the UNI campus in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Mona Milius is the Associate Director of
Residence/Dining; Margaret Empie, is Assistant
Director for Catering and Retail Services; and Carol Fletcher is Assistant
Director for Residential Dining. UNI operates 13 facilities including Fresh
Beginnings, Maucker Union Dining, Piazza Center,
Rialto Dining Center,
23rd Street
Market, and Biscotti's & More. Many of the baked goods served are prepared
fresh daily in Fresh Beginnings, the UNI bakery. More than 750 students are
employed by UNI Dining services in a variety of jobs in catering, retail, baking,
office assistant, serving, driving, cleaning and
student supervisor/manager. For more information visit www.uni.edu/dor/dining

.
The figure below highlights the UNI Dining facilities.

Fig. 2. Map of the University of Northern Iowa
campus with the dining facilities marked.

Between
August 2004 and December 2004, Rialto
served 265,374 guests and Piazza served 263,019 guests. In the Maucker Union retail operations between August and
December, Prexy’s served 65,978 guests and
Chat’s served 44,024. The convenience stores served 102,250 guests
between August and December, and cart operations served 12,727 guests. The
budget for all operations is approximately $11,300,000.

About the University of Northern Iowa

The
University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is a state-supported
University of approximately 13,000 students, located on the west side of the
Cedar Falls/Waterloo metro area in northeast Iowa. UNI was founded in 1876 and the
current President is Robert D. Koob. The University
offers more than 120 undergraduate majors and the average age of undergraduates
is 21.5 years. Overall, 92% of the student body is from Iowa. UNI was previously named the Iowa State Normal School (1876-1909); Iowa State Teachers College (1909-1961); and State
College of Iowa (1961-1967). It was officially named the University of Northern Iowa
in 1967. Colleges at the University include Business Administration, Education,
Humanities and Fine Arts, Natural Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences and
the Graduate College. Fall 2004 enrollment was
12,824, including 11,220 undergraduate students and 1,604 graduate students.
Students come from 46 states, 73 countries and all 99 Iowa counties. The UNI website is www.uni.edu.

About Aurora Information Systems

Aurora Information Systems was formed
in 1995 as a privately held corporation by the original developers of FoodPro®. The principals of Aurora Information Systems
have been associated with FoodPro® for more than
twenty-five years. They worked for the company, Concept Systems, Inc., which
originally owned FoodPro®. Concept Systems was
later purchased by another company, Uniquest, for
whom the Aurora
principals worked until December 1994. Jerry Cully, President of Aurora
Information Systems, has 30 years of food service experience and has been
directly involved with the automation of over 60 University Accounts. Mr. Cully
participated in the installation of UNI’s first
automated food system, FOCUS, in 1979-80. John Sooy,
Vice President of Aurora, has been the chief developer of FoodPro®
since its early days. FoodPro® was first
installed at the University
of Wisconsin –
Stout in 1980. FoodPro® is now installed at 38 universities
and 1 correctional facility throughout the United States. The Web URL is foodpro.com.

About the Authors

Daniel J. Power is Professor of
Information Systems at the University
of Northern Iowa and he
is the Editor of DSSResources.COM. Carol L. Fletcher is Assistant Director for
Residential Dining at the University
of Northern Iowa.

Some Questions for Further Analysis
and Discussion

What is the purpose of FoodPro?

Do any FoodPro
subsystems support decision making?

Overall, is FoodPro
a Data-driven Decision Support System or an integrated Information System?
Why or why not?

What decision support
technologies were used? Why?

What is the major benefit of
using FoodPro rather than a tool like Excel for
providing analytical information to decision makers? Why?

Should all University Dining
Services use this type of management planning and control capability? Why
or why not?

How does management know which
Food Service software vendor to select? Do you think it is difficult to
change Food Service software vendors? Why or why not?

What are the key IS/T challenges
in University food service? Today? Five years hence?

What problems or difficulties do
you anticipate with the use of this type of integrated decision support
and transaction processing solution?

Do you see any strategic issues
or potential problems for UNI Dining Services resulting from its
dependency on Aurora Information Systems?

Please cite as:

Power, D. J.
and C. L. Fletcher, "University of Northern Iowa Dining Services uses FoodPro®", June 3, 2005 at URL DSSResources.COM.

Jerry Cully, President of Aurora
Information Systems, provided permission to use the screen shots from FoodPro® at DSSResources.COM on March 03, 2005. Contact
him at email [email-masked]. The authors want to thank Jerry Cully and
the UNI Dining Services staff for help with this case. Dan Power especially
wants to thank Rosie Lang for demonstrating the FoodPro®
system for him. This case study was posted at DSSResources.COM on Friday, June
3, 2005.

This case study is provided for
informational purposes only. DSSResources.COM makes no warranties, express or
implied, about this case summary. FoodPro® is a
registered trademark of Aurora Information Systems.