Professor Howard Weiss provides a timely example of qualitative forecasting.
Waffle House is a restaurant chain with over 2,000 locations in 25 states ranging from Florida as far north as Pennsylvania and as far west as Arizona, operating all day every day. When you think of a Waffle House, you think about eggs, bacon, and, of course, waffles. What you don’t think about is forecasting. The Waffle House Index is a map that Waffle House provides of the status of its restaurants.
Red means the restaurant is closed likely due to severe damage or unsafe conditions
Yellow indicates that the restaurant is open but only serving a partial menu. The restaurant is working off of a generator and may not have water but has the ability to cook the meals.
Green means the restaurant is fully operational.
From the closings one can see the severity of an upcoming storm as indicated by this map captured one day before Hurricane Milton is scheduled to strike Florida. Residents can use the information to decide on their storm strategy. One can also see the damage caused after the storm based on the open or closed Waffle Houses. The use of the index is a qualitative forecasting method as discussed your textbook.
The government, including FEMA, uses different methods to track storms, including airplanes and satellite. But FEMA also began to use the Waffle House Index in 2011 to gauge the severity of any storm. Waffle House has a reputation for staying open during storms as long as or even longer than any other restaurant so that people can get a hot meal, charge cell phones or just warm up or cool down. The map is not only useful before a weather event but also afterwards since it indicates how the recovery is going in an area served by a Waffle House.
Waffle House has chosen a strategy based on keeping their restaurants open 24/7. This includes purchasing generators for their stores and using what they term as “Jump Teams”. The jump team consists of volunteers who go to the affected location by car or even plane in order to help the employees get the restaurant open as soon as possible. These teams are, of course, examples of varying the workforce and/or subcontracting as described in the Aggregate Planning chapter (Ch. 13).
Classroom discussion questions
1. What other organizations use subcontracting in the event of a storm?
2. What companies are essential to re-open as soon as possible after a storm?