Business Commons^™

Lean And Six Sigma In Hospitality Organizations: Benefits, Challenges, And Implementation, Justin M. Lancaster

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this paper to provide a plan and framework to successfully implement Lean and Six Sigma into a hospitality organization.

Development Of A Sustainable Water Resource Financing Mathematical Model For Donors And End-Users, Sahar Zavareh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Rural villages and underdeveloped communities represent the largest group challenged by poor water supply and sanitation with inequalities in resources to adequately implement potential solutions and even more with their high risk level of financing, funding is particularly challenging for water projects. Innovative financing alone will not eliminate the burdens of rural villages and underdeveloped communities. The purpose of this thesis is to address the lack of sustainable water financing of water projects in rural areas using a novel framework of a mathematical model based on "system dynamics" using optimal feedback control theory to maximize the performance of a water …

Adjusting Payroll With Changes In Business Volumes: An Examination Of Nevada Gaming Properties, Toni A. Repetti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation analyzes expense preference behavior by managers of Nevada casinos. Annual aggregate data is obtained from the Nevada Gaming Control Board from 1990 to 2010. Using ordinary least squares regression, three models are run to account for various payroll related expenses. The dependent variable in the first model is number of employees. The second model uses salaries and wages as the dependent variable and the third model uses total payroll. All models include predictor variables of total revenue as an indication of size, a dummy variable for market concentration and a dummy variable for recessionary periods.

The finding show …

Credit Fluctuations And Lodging Firms: An Investigation Of The Differing Capital Structures In The Us Lodging Industry, Dipendra Singh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study empirically investigates the effect of credit availability and firm size on the leverage of lodging industry in United States using a 3 X 2 factorial Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). Three time points of differing credit availability (Low, High, and Average) were identified using Case-Shiller home price index. Leverage, Net Leverage, and Short-to-Long-Term debt ratios of large and small US lodging firms were analyzed at these differing credit availability time points to assess any significant differences. Specifically, this study attempts to find whether there is an interaction effect of credit availability and firm size on the leverage of …

Using Lean To Teach The Technical Services Value Stream: An Online Continuing Education Course, Tamera Hanken

Library Faculty Presentations

Lean Principles:

• Identify steps in the process that add customer defined value

• Identify waste in transportation, wait, overproduction, defect, inventory, motion, or extra processing

• Eliminate the steps in the process that don’t add value or are unnecessary

• Make sure the steps flow in an efficient sequence

• Establish pull, i.e., make sure the steps in the sequence don’t create bottlenecks

• Continue to improve the process

Gambling With Lives: A History Of Occupational Health In Southern Nevada, 1905--2010, Michelle Ann Turk

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In April 2009, the Pulitzer committee awarded its public service prize to the Las Vegas Sun for its coverage of the high fatalities on Las Vegas Strip construction sites. The newspaper attributed failures in safety policy to "the exponential growth in the Las Vegas market." In fact, since Las Vegas' founding in 1905, rapid development in the region has always strained occupational health standards. From transporting hazardous railroad cargoes to building Hoover Dam, chemical processing at Basic Magnesium, nuclear testing, and dense megaresort construction on the Strip, workers, residents, and tourists alike have been exposed to the threat of living …

Evaluating And Implementing Web Scale Discovery Services: Part Two, Jason Vaughan, Tamera Hanken

Library Faculty Presentations

Part Four: Quick Tour of the Current Marketplace:

• "The Big 5"
• Similarities and differences

Part Five: It's Not All Sliced Bread:

• Shortcomings of web scale discovery

Part Six: Implementation (pre launch steps):

• Selecting and preparing implementation staff
• Preparing and communicating process/decisions with all staff
• Working with the vendor (roles, expectations, timeline)
• Workflow changes and implications (technical services)

Part Seven: Specific implementation tasks, issues, and considerations:

• Record loading and mapping (catalog content)
• Harvesting and mapping digital/local content
• Working with central index data (internal & external content)
• Web integration and customization
• Assessment and continuous improvement

Evaluating And Implementing Web Scale Discovery Services: Part One, Jason Vaughan, Tamera Hanken

Library Faculty Presentations

Preface: Before Web Scale Discovery

• A very brief overview

Part 1: What is Web Scale Discovery

• Content
• Technology

Part 2: Why is Web Scale Discovery important?

• What’s the need?
• How is it different from earlier attempts at broad discovery?

Part 3: A Framework for Evaluating Web Scale Discovery Services

• What we did at UNLV
• Other options

Walking Box Ranch Planning And Design Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending July 10, 2010, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV participated in several meetings with BLM regarding updating the current Task Order, obtaining a two-year no-cost extension for the two Assistance Agreements, and to develop the future WBR operating agreement between BLM and UNLV
• UNLV met with Sara Moffatt, one of Senator Reid’s staff, to provide an update on project progress. UNLV also requested the Senator’s support in obtaining additional funding for the project for construction, and also for UNLV to bridge the transition from construction through the first two years of operation.
• UNLV held several internal meetings to advance planning for a July VA meeting with BLM to …

Sunshine Café: A Breakfast Restaurant Business Plan, Lillian I. Burrow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this paper is to create a business plan for the SunShine Café. While the commonly known statistic of 90% of restaurants fail within the first year is false, approximately 60% of restaurants do fail within their first three years of operation (Parsa, Self, Njite, & King, 2005). The problem for entrepreneurs starting a restaurant is how does one reduce this risk of failure.

One way to minimize this risk is to create a business plan. Thus the main objective of this paper is to create a business plan that will not only help the restaurant develop …

Hospitality Loyalty Program Effectiveness Evaluation Rubric, Nazia Charania

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper examines the various loyalty program strategies and design elements utilized within the hospitality industry and evaluates the implications of the various strategies on establishing and fostering loyalty among consumers within a hyper competitive industry. In order to maintain competitive parity, many programs have constantly lowered reward thresholds and increased program offerings, making such programs very costly and with little direct evaluation in their ability to stimulate true loyalty. In a society bombarded by loyalty programs in almost all industries, consumers are becoming very savvy in comparing their personal rewards to the effort and inconveniences incurred by enrolling. The …

An Exploratory Study Of Casino Customer Loyalty Programs, Cristina R. Crofts

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study summarizes academic theories and industry applications related to customer loyalty programs, drawing on literature pertaining to reciprocity and resource theory, attitudinal loyalty, tiered loyalty programs, and reward type and timing. Specifically, this study attempts to understand aspects that have been proven successful in order to design more effective customer loyalty programs. This literature synthesis provides important professional implications for casino executives in effectively designing customer loyalty programs.

Cultural Acceptance And Its Effect On Tourism, I-Hsuan Shih

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This professional paper examines the relationship between cultural acceptance in conjunction with social perception and cultural tourism promotion strategies. It provides a matrix to evaluate the likely success of promoting a specific cultural aspect of a destination and suggestions for ways of dealing with a lack of cultural acceptance or negative perceptions. It underscores the need for tourism strategic planners to take into account the cultural acceptance of a proposed project by the host community before proceeding.

The Green Movement In Hotels: Are College Students On Board?, Amy Walker

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this study is to see if environmentally friendly practices are a factor for college students when selecting a hotel. Another purpose of this study is to see if students would be willing to spend more for hotels who offer these environmentally friendly practices.

The Management Of An Indigenous Hotel Chain Company In China: A Case Study Of Sichuan Minshan Hotel Corporation, Yinglin Wang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Justification:

The hotel industry has a comparatively lower threshold for market entry. This has enabled many international foreign competitors to successfully take up a fairly large share of this market. The competition in this emerging industry in China is becoming increasingly fierce as time progresses. Due to the pressure of growing number of foreign competitors, some indigenous hotels in China have started to follow in their footsteps and expand their sister properties across the country. However managing hotel chain properties is still new to most of these indigenous hotel chain organizations and the hotel chain effects of maximizing profits have …

The Modern Brand: A Guide To The Intigration Of Csr Practices Into Hotel Branding, Matthew Warren

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction:

There are certain components of the hospitality industry that make it unique in comparison to other industries. One of those components is the perishability that is associated with the hotel product. When it comes to hotel rooms, if a room is left empty then there is instantly lost profit for that property with no way of recovering it. In order to make maximum profit all rooms must be filled each night, this makes the task of attracting customers of the upmost importance within the industry. One of the primary ways in which hospitality companies have strived to attract customers …

Research Study Proposal For Nightlife Company (San Francisco, Ca), Trevor Hewitt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction:

This research proposal proposes a study to evaluate the differences in consumer spending amongst a company’s three types of customers (pre-sale ticketed, paid admission, free admission) once granted entry to one of the company’s nightclub venues in order to evaluate the optimal supply mix of customer type to maximize revenues. Since the company’s venue has a finite customer capacity limit due to safety and fire regulations and laws and it generally reaches these legal capacity levels on the vast majority of the nights it is open for business (leaving surplus customers unable to enter the venue), the proposed research …

Hotel Front Office Training: Turning Expense Into Investment, Thomas Sanders

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The process of employee training is typically looked upon as an expense, but perhaps a more insightful view would be to consider employee training an investment. This becomes possible when employees are taught to execute service-marketing principles during customer interactions. Well-executed interactions then lead to satisfied guests, repeat purchases, and company profitability. The purpose of this paper is to develop a customer focused training guideline integrating service-marketing concepts into the front office employee training process. A literature review was conducted to identify service marketing concepts and best training practices that can be applied to the hotel employee workplace. This information …

Preventing Workplace Injuries Commonly Sustained By Hotel Guestroom Attendants, Jennifer Daros

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction:

Hotels are generally organized into various departments. These provide specialized services to guests. Almost every hotel in the world has (in one form or another) a housekeeping department. Guestroom attendants (GRAs) are a primary component of any housekeeping department. GRAs (also known as maids, housekeepers, or room/suite service attendants) are employed by hotels to clean guestrooms, change bed linens, restock supplies, and provide turn down services when requested (see Appendix A). Those employed as GRAs frequently suffer injuries at work that can be costly to employers. This paper reviews some of the more common causes of GRA workplace injuries …

Business Plan For U.S. Based Soup And Salad Franchise Restaurant In Beijing, China, Xin Xu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this paper is to build a business plan for American soup and salad buffet style restaurant franchisors who want to expand their business in Beijing, China. It will focus on analyzing the potential consumers, menu, price, location, and local competitors for such a restaurant.

A Cultural Perspective On Motivation Factors Affecting Exhibition Participation, Young Ki Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With increasing global competitions, more opportunities transcending national boundaries may exist for the exhibition organizers and participants. This study offered an integrated approach to understanding how various motivation factors affect the participation in exhibition. The literature review included an introduction of push/pull motivation theories as one of the most representative motivation theories. The factor analysis of survey results supported the categorization of push/pull factors in exhibition industry. The paper concluded that the factor analysis procedures yielded the motivation factor dimensions with similar natures and four underlined motivation dimensions of exhibition participation were labeled. Furthermore, the cultural difference between Western and …

Technology Base Self Service In Hospitality Industry, Wan Chi Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There are more and more technology based self service (TBSS) encountering people’s daily life, even hospitality industry, where people pay to get service, has began to add TBSS as part of their service. Some people believe this TBSS is the trend for the future, but some others who have experienced this service believe that traditional human touch service (THTS) will be remain as the main service providing channel. While people are wondering what kind of service to provide as they want to get a high return on their investment, they need to have a better understanding on self service technology. …

Evaluating Websites By Features: Do Independent Hotels In Singapore Get It Right?, Prasetya Purnawan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study aims to evaluate the websites of independent hotels in Singapore in the business-to-consumer (B2C) framework. The modified balanced scorecard (BSC) approach is incorporated into the evaluation by features method in order to avoid the dominance of the marketing perspective by including technical, customer, and destination information perspectives. A set of website evaluation criteria representing these four perspectives is then used to examine the websites of 37 independent hotels. Almost three of four hotels get it right in developing, utilizing, and maintaining their websites. These websites have the presence of features that are known to be contributing towards website …

Business Plan For 1st Street Diner And Nightclub, Brian D. Deets

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A business plan was created for a diner and nightclub located in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, and the concept was found to be unique to the Des Moines area. The downtown community is home to sixty-six American-cuisine eateries, is under continued development, and looking to house more restaurant and entertainment establishments. Des Moines has a five-county metropolitan area with a population of 562,000 and Des Moines alone is home to 200,000 people. The downtown community is growing, and with the projected employment outlook to rise 11%, downtown’s 77,000 employees will also increase. These findings suggest that there is a market …

E-Mail Management Of Japanese Hotels In Comparison With South Korean Hotels, Kyoko Morikoshi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There has been little study done concerning the service quality of Japanese hotels toward foreign guests; especially e-mail management in English has not been analyzed in Japan before. Since e-mail inquiries in English from foreign guests could be the first step for Japanese hotels to provide good service to prospective guests, managing English e-mails efficiently is a key to attracting more foreign guests. Therefore this study examined the actual condition of e-mail management at Japanese hotels by sending an English inquiry to them. Korean hotels were also included because South Korea and Japan have similar linguistic and economic backgrounds. A …

Mountain Monitor-1st Quarter 2011, Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri, Jonathan Rothwell

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The pace of economic recovery slowed in the large metros of the Intermountain West in the first quarter of 2011. Widespread but slowing output growth was coupled with much slower improvement in the labor market, where for the first time the region’s unemployment rate edged above the nation’s. The weight of a still-depressed housing market slowed recovery further. Overall, the differing courses of the region’s 10 major metro economies since the beginning of the recession can be characterized by relatively strong bouncebacks to the north and east of the region and more sluggish and protracted slogs to the south and …

Help Of Southern Nevada Analysis Project, Lauren Cella, Carly Dunlap, Jonathon Nunes, Anna Vaillancourt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

HELP of Southern Nevada (HELP), a not-for-profit agency, would like to expand their current services by operating a thrift store. It is anticipated that this thrift store would bring in additional revenue and also benefit their current programs. In direct conversations with the Chief Operating Officer of HELP, areas of concern were expressed regarding the implementation process of the thrift store. These areas pertained to size and location of their potential facility, staffing issues, and distribution priority of donated goods to their existing programs. Analysis was conducted through on-site interviews with other executives of Southern Nevada not-for profit thrift stores …

Jackpot! A Legal History Of Indian Gaming In California, Aaron Peardon

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Indian Gaming has transformed the economic, political, and sociological landscape of California. The growth of Indian casinos has had a profound impact on both Indian and non-Indian communities alike. California tribes took the lead in legalizing Indian Gaming throughout the nation. The efforts of California tribes in the legislative and political process have enabled many tribal groups to rise out of poverty and to gain prosperity that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. They have also brought increased revenue to local communities and have provided thousands of jobs to all Californians.

This thesis discusses the historical relationships between Native American …

Financial Performance And Capacity Analysis For The Mice Industry In Las Vegas And The United States, Li-Ting Yang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The meetings, incentive travel, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE) industry is comparatively young and diverse. As a result, there has been limited research conducted in this field, especially from the financial performance and capacity management perspective. The purpose of this study is to fill the gap by analyzing the MICE capacity optimization issue in Las Vegas, a leading MICE destination, and in the U.S., a leading MICE country in the world. The findings and results of this study should help industry practitioners better understand the current status of the U.S. MICE industry in terms of assets efficiency, operational costs, and profitability. …

An Empirical Comparison Of Life Cycle Cost Of Green School Buildings And Non-Green School Buildings, Nitisha Pushpala

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One of the major economic concerns today of the world is reduction of energy consumption because of depleting energy sources in the world. The construction sector in the United States is also contributing in reducing the energy consumption and construction cost of the buildings by constructing cost and energy efficient buildings with energy efficient materials and techniques. The U.S Department of Energy introduced the Building Technologies Program that develops techniques, tools and technologies for making buildings more energy efficient. Other private bodies like the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), which is developed by the U.S. Green Building Council …