Stop Food Waste - Learning Launch 

 Challenge & Selection 

 I ’m a business analyst and my job is to support managers and employees of the nine   departments that make the administrative and finance division to work with the new policies   and rules which the company has been facing throughout the past couple years . 

 At a given day , I was talking with the facilities group that told me that about seven months ago ,   the food service vendor , who serves meals for the approx . 1600 employees at the workplace ,   decided to start charging for the meals which were reserved and not eaten . Upfront   reservations are needed for the restaurant to estimate the amount of meals it needs to prepare   each day . However , the contractor noticed that too many reservations were done but   employees did not consume it , this way the food was prepared but not paid for . Consequently ,   the contractor decided to no longer take this expense for themselves but charge the   employees . Since this is not legal under local laws , the contractor charged the company , which   then decided to charge the cost centers of each employee who reserved a meal and did not   eat it . This means that every time an employee created a food waste , the amount of it would be   booked at the employee´s manager cost center as an incentive to reduce food waste . This rule   change was communicated to all employees from the very beginning , seven months ago . 

 I personally thought that this change was only good to the food service provider ( contractor ) ,   and not so good to the company that I worked for as the food waste expenses were booked   among all of the sky high cost centers expenses such as payroll , consulting services , office   supplies . Then , this made me wondered whether the food waste charges were visible to   managers and whether they were able to control this expense on a monthly basis . 

 Thus , I had a hypothesis . Was any manager checking on the food waste expenses which their   employees were creating and expensed at their cost center ? How big was this bill ? Was this   change helping to lower the amount of food waste ? 

 To test my hypothesis , I decided on applying the Learning Launch Tool . It was a way that I   found to reduce the use of resources – IT developing team , IT solutions or negotiating with the   Food Service Vendor- at the beginning of my project , when barely I knew if it was in fact a pain   that managers felt or whether it could be helping to reduce the company ’s overall General &   Administrative expenses ( food bill ) . 

 Application 

 I started by gathering some data concerning the number of meals which were reserved and   consumed as well as reserved and non - consumed in the period of one month . Then , I divided   the employees by their cost center . Then I prepared a very nice dashboard and scheduled   interviews with some managers from administrative areas as well as from production areas . 

 I questioned managers whether they were aware of this change in charging system , whether   they controlled the amount booked in their cost centers and whether they spoken to employees   about this problem , to overcome part of the waste . 

 During the interviews , I have found out that indeed , the communication has failed . Managers   from both , administrative and manufacturing were not aware of this change in expensing . Also , 

 they mentioned that they do n’t control the charges concerning food in their cost center , but   they would like to do so , in a person to person basis . 

 Managers reported that they would like to know and see who from their team has reserved and   not eaten and then , they would follow the improvements of that person along the months . 

 Also , managers were astonished when they saw this simple 1 - month report that I prepared and   found out how many meals their employees have literally thrown away . Thus , managers asked   me to send over this report and a year - to - date report immediately , even before any IT solution   is ready . 

 Insight 

 My assumption started from a disturbing reality of food being thrown away . This meant more   for me than just money being wasted , but it is also a civic duty . I also thought that perhaps   managers were the best way to reach out to the employees that were creating such a waste ,   as the managers were paying for the bill , thus , they should be more than interested in reducing   their expenses . As I am not a manager , I did not know how the control of spending in cost   centers work so I really had to interview them and hear what they thought of this situation and   of my idea , of sending them monthly reports to control the spending of food waste . 

 From my launch , I have learned that they were not only happy to receive the control sheet , but   they had a sense of urgency in that . They would like to act on it as fast as they could . Thus , my   assumption was validated , and I moved to the next phase , developing the IT solution that   gathers this information altogether and automatically sends to managers in a monthly basis by   e - mail . 

 Approach 

 In my view , the learning launch tool was the best method as the managers were not aware of   the problem and seeing an example of the report which they would receive on a monthly basis ,    made they excited about the room for improvement in their area , and specially in their budgets . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Stop Food Waste - Learning Launch 

 Challenge & Selection 

 I ’m a business analyst and my job is to support managers and employees of the nine   departments that make the administrative and finance division to work with the new policies   and rules which the company has been facing throughout the past couple years . 

 At a given day , I was talking with the facilities group that told me that about seven months ago ,   the food service vendor , who serves meals for the approx . 1600 employees at the workplace ,   decided to start charging for the meals which were reserved and not eaten . Upfront   reservations are needed for the restaurant to estimate the amount of meals it needs to prepare   each day . However , the contractor noticed that too many reservations were done but   employees did not consume it , this way the food was prepared but not paid for . Consequently ,   the contractor decided to no longer take this expense for themselves but charge the   employees . Since this is not legal under local laws , the contractor charged the company , which   then decided to charge the cost centers of each employee who reserved a meal and did not   eat it . This means that every time an employee created a food waste , the amount of it would be   booked at the employee´s manager cost center as an incentive to reduce food waste . This rule   change was communicated to all employees from the very beginning , seven months ago . 

 I personally thought that this change was only good to the food service provider ( contractor ) ,   and not so good to the company that I worked for as the food waste expenses were booked   among all of the sky high cost centers expenses such as payroll , consulting services , office   supplies . Then , this made me wondered whether the food waste charges were visible to   managers and whether they were able to control this expense on a monthly basis . 

 Thus , I had a hypothesis . Was any manager checking on the food waste expenses which their   employees were creating and expensed at their cost center ? How big was this bill ? Was this   change helping to lower the amount of food waste ? 

 To test my hypothesis , I decided on applying the Learning Launch Tool . It was a way that I   found to reduce the use of resources – IT developing team , IT solutions or negotiating with the   Food Service Vendor- at the beginning of my project , when barely I knew if it was in fact a pain   that managers felt or whether it could be helping to reduce the company ’s overall General &   Administrative expenses ( food bill ) . 

 Application 

 I started by gathering some data concerning the number of meals which were reserved and   consumed as well as reserved and non - consumed in the period of one month . Then , I divided   the employees by their cost center . Then I prepared a very nice dashboard and scheduled   interviews with some managers from administrative areas as well as from production areas . 

 I questioned managers whether they were aware of this change in charging system , whether   they controlled the amount booked in their cost centers and whether they spoken to employees   about this problem , to overcome part of the waste . 

 During the interviews , I have found out that indeed , the communication has failed . Managers   from both , administrative and manufacturing were not aware of this change in expensing . Also , 

 they mentioned that they do n’t control the charges concerning food in their cost center , but   they would like to do so , in a person to person basis . 

 Managers reported that they would like to know and see who from their team has reserved and   not eaten and then , they would follow the improvements of that person along the months . 

 Also , managers were astonished when they saw this simple 1 - month report that I prepared and   found out how many meals their employees have literally thrown away . Thus , managers asked   me to send over this report and a year - to - date report immediately , even before any IT solution   is ready . 

 Insight 

 My assumption started from a disturbing reality of food being thrown away . This meant more   for me than just money being wasted , but it is also a civic duty . I also thought that perhaps   managers were the best way to reach out to the employees that were creating such a waste ,   as the managers were paying for the bill , thus , they should be more than interested in reducing   their expenses . As I am not a manager , I did not know how the control of spending in cost   centers work so I really had to interview them and hear what they thought of this situation and   of my idea , of sending them monthly reports to control the spending of food waste . 

 From my launch , I have learned that they were not only happy to receive the control sheet , but   they had a sense of urgency in that . They would like to act on it as fast as they could . Thus , my   assumption was validated , and I moved to the next phase , developing the IT solution that   gathers this information altogether and automatically sends to managers in a monthly basis by   e - mail . 

 Approach 

 In my view , the learning launch tool was the best method as the managers were not aware of   the problem and seeing an example of the report which they would receive on a monthly basis ,    made they excited about the room for improvement in their area , and specially in their budgets .
### Output: 