Movie tickets online ordering platform Jack Wang Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, 101, Sec. 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan Abstract Lining up in a cinema can be extremely exhausting, and waste lot of time for a customer. Owing to the technology changes at a rapid pace, speed and efficiency, and it has become the important issue to the service industry. Therefore, I try to develop an online ordering system to provide more functions and more convenient ticket buying environment for customer to use. Additionally, it not only makes benefits to customers, but also increases better methods of management of report control. Eventually, I hope to encourage all customers using online ordering system that can help them spend less time on waiting for service in a cinema. Word count: 2541 Introduction There are 5 big cinemas in Hsinchu, they are: Vie Show Cinemas Hsinchu Big City, Vie Show Cinemas Hsinchu FE21, Ambassador theatres, Star Cinemas and the secondrun theater Hsin Fu Jean theater. Most of them don t have the exactly same movie list nor same showtimes for the same movies. When customer wants to see a movie, he/she have to choose a cinema and then select the preferred showtimes, but it always happens to him/her that the cinema doesn t have a better showtimes or even worse not showing the movie. The main purpose of this project is to integrate the cinemas information in Hsinchu including the showing movies, showtimes, location, and develop an online platform. Therefore, customers can order the best movie ticket by browsing online at home, spending less time in traffic and queuing. To fulfill this project, there are some tools to be used, they are: 1. INCOME: create As-Is and To-Be model 2. SQL Server: build the database for the platform 3. ASP.NET: develop online ordering platform 1. INCOME model 1.1 As-Is model As-Is behavior model present in Figure1. It is current process to buy a movie tickets. 1
And one of the process can be drilled down to see a clearer steps for serving. See Figure2. Figure 1. As-Is behavior model The service process flow is shown above, when customers decide which cinema to see a movie, they have to line up in the queue waiting for buying a movie ticket. As long as they reach to the counter clerk will serve them, finally leave the counter with/without the tickets. Figure 2. As-Is behavior model drilled down process The Clerk sells the ticket can be drilled down to more specific steps as shown in Figure 2, at first clerk will ask customers what movie they want to see, movies that are showing in the cinema can be selected, and then the showtime should be decided. Lastly seat will be decided, and print out the ticket. In this drilled down process, there are 2 loop, one is if customers are not satisfied with the seat, they probably would decide giving up buying this showtime, and choose other showtimes. And the second one is maybe they would choose another movie. There are some disadvantages in the As-Is model, customers leaving can cost a lot, especially when they already in front of the counter, and are not satisfied with the ticket. This causes clerk s service in vain, and other customers waiting time, maybe 2
has some potential influence on other customers leaving because of increasing the dissatisfaction. 1.2 To-Be model To-Be model is different from As-Is model. I hope to add a new function which can provide customer online ordering and searching information about movies immediately that is an online ordering platform. So, the behavior model would be modified, as Figure 3 shows. Figure 3. To-Be model for the new process When customers go into the cinema, they must check if they are buying a ticket on the spot, or they have had ordered the ticket before. And then, 2 ways of the process be followed. One is just the same as the As-Is model lining up in front of the counter, another is going to the special window for customers to get the preordered ticket with their confirmation emails sent from the system. There is independent process for online ordering, service process is presented in Figure 4. Figure 4. online ordering behavior model If customers want to order a movie ticket online, the first thing to do is to register for this platform, the email information is must-filled column. It is for a successful ordering process. Once your account is in the database of the system, you log in the system, it will show you movies that are now playing in all the cinemas, and much of 3
the information about the movie is presented. Next step you should do is, selecting a movie that you want to see. And then, system show you the entire showtimes of the movie all over the cinemas that playing the movie, you can just click the ordering button at the table that be presented, or you can query a more specific showtimes by filter the cinema. 2. Object model The object model is shown as Figure 5. There are 4 main data tables: movie data table, director data table, cinema data table, and the member data table. The relationships among these 4 main data tables can be read also in the Figure 5. In the movie data table, there are some information you can get, movie : the movie s name it is the key column that is there are not duplicated movie in this data table, director : the director of the movie, score : the audience who already see the movie can give a 1 to 10 score for the movie, and then take the average score of them and be shown in this column, trailer : it is the youtube url link to play the trailer of the movie, to help you know more about the plot, the cinema : it is the cinemas which is playing this movie. And the showtimes : it is the showtimes that all over the cinema which is playing this movie and presented in this column. In the director data table, there are 2 information you can get, they are: director : the director s name it is the key column that is there is not duplicated director s name in this data table, movies : It is the list of the movies name which were directed by this director. In the cinema data table, there are 3 information you can get, they are: cinema : the cinema s name it is the key column that is there is not duplicated cinema s name in this data table, location : it is the location of the cinema, movies : it is a list of movies that are now showing in the cinema. In the member data table, there are 5 information you can get, they are: name : the member s name it is the key column that is there is not duplicated member s name in this data table, Email : it is the email of the member, it is very important to the system, the ordering process works or not depend a lot on it, Phone : the cellphone number of the member, it can be an alternative solution to inform the customers whether they have done the ordering, Account : the member s account id for log in the system, movies : it is a list of the movie s name that this member save as their favorite movies. The linkages among these 4 data tables are listed below. 1. The director in the [movie] data table links to [director] data table, because the director of the movie can be referred to exactly one data in the [director] 4
data table. And it is a one to one relationship. 2. The cinema in the [movie] data table links to [cinema] data table, because the cinemas that are playing this movie can be many of the cinemas in the database, they can be referred to some data in the [cinema] data table. And between these 2 data table is a one to many relationship. 3. The movies in the [director] data table links to [movie] data table, because although some of the movies are not available in the cinema, every movie still can be found in the [movie] data table, they all have their own score, trailer. And it is a list of one to one relationship. 4. The movies in the [cinema] data table links to [movie] data table, because every movie that is now playing in this cinema can be found in the [movie] data table, they all have their own score, trailer. And it is a list of one to one relationship. 5. The movies in the [member] data table links to [movie] data table, because every movie that is the member likes can be found in the [movie] data table, they all have their own score, trailer. And it is a list of one to one relationship. Figure 5. The object model of the database. 5
3. System implementation According to our To-Be model and object model, I try to develop an online ordering platform hope to improve the process of buying a movie ticket. Trying to integrate the cinemas information in Hsinchu including the showing movies, showtimes, location. Provide as much as possible information to customers to let them order the movie with satisfaction. The following section will address all the functions of the movie ticket online ordering platform. 1. Home page When users first come to visit this website, they will see the whole page is the movies that are now playing in the cinemas in Hsinchu. Information of the movies is presented in a table as shown in Figure 6. This table have some columns: the movie s name, the image of movie s poster, the director of the movie, the score of the movie, the brief introduction of the movie, the youtube link of the movie trailer. For my own experience, I think the director of the movie is very importance, it will somehow have some influence on willingness of seeing the movie of the audience. So, I create a director data table and connect it from this table, if the users are interested in the director of the movie, they can click the director column, and then the system will redirect to another page: director page to see more information of the director. Also, previewing brief introduction of the movie can be helpful to enjoy the movie, let audience easier to get into the plot. So, trailers of the movies are put in the table, when users click the trailer link, the system will open a new youtube tab. There are 2 drop down list: one is selecting a movie, and the other is selecting a cinema, they are for filtering purpose. It can provide a straightforward result to users. For example, when I select the In the heart of the sea, the movie showtimes will presented in the middle of the page and also the movie s information, for more specific you can select the very cinema you want to go, then the showtimes will refresh again, as shown in Figure 7&8. The presented showtimes has a button: order, that is for user to order the ticket of the movie in such cinema at what time. Yet, you don t have the permission to click the button, if you haven t login the system. The first thing to do is to register the account of the system, so you may see the login interface, enter the account and password and click the login and then login the system, or you probably don t have an account, so you just click the register button to create your own account into the database, to stimulate the function of online ordering. Everything is ready, then we can order the ticket online, when user click the order button, the system will redirect to an ordering page, I just use a simple template to 6
demonstrate this function, but the essence remains. There are the information of the user, including user name, and of course the movie s information that user decide to see. And there is one blank to be entered: number of the ticket. Enter the number and then click the send out button, to let system know you already send the ordering request. After the online ordering process finished, you may see your email box, the system will send an email for the user, content including: the user s name, what movie in which cinema at what time and how many tickets you just order, and money you have to pay for the transaction. As shown in Figure 9. And this email can be a reminder, or user just take this email to the cinema to buy the ticket. Figure 6. Homepage of the website 7
Figure 7. Selecting a movie filtering showtimes Figure 8. Selecting a cinema filtering showtimes 8
Figure 9. Reminding email for customer 2. Director page Some of the audiences are interested in director s experience. So in this page, director s collection of the movies are presented in a table, let audience know more about the director previous works. 3. Register page If users want to have the permission of ordering online, they can register an account in this page, some information have to be filled: your account id, password, your name, the most important one email address, and your phone number as well. There is one button to check if the account id you enter is usable or not. If the account id is already in the database, which means somebody has registered this system with the account id. Once you finish the process, the system will save your information in the member data table, so back to the homepage you can successfully login the system. 4. Conclusion Despite most of the cinemas already had the on-line booking system, there is not a platform that integrating them together. So, I try to integrate some cinemas to let audience a much more complete information of now playing movies showtime, to get a suitable ticket owing to comparable showtimes are presented. And with this online ordering system, it can change some traditional buying ticket process in a little different way. There will be a special window in the cinema to provide delivering ticket by confirming customers emails service. For my future work, I hope cinema can provide 9
online information of the available seat of the movie, therefore, a faster and convenient process can be created, customers don t need to go to the counter to check where to sit, neither do the clerks explain the layout in the hall and then tell customers which row to sit. Maybe there is no need to hire so many clerks for selling ticket. With the new installation, customer s demand can be early understood by the cinema. The change allows the cinema to operate the procedure in advanced and makes the customer be able to book online instead of spending time for lining up on the spot. Therefore, we highly expect the improvement of management efficiency of the cinema. By reducing the unnecessary staff cost, the profit of the company will increase. Moreover, a better and more ergonomic on-line booking system design are needed, to attract more customers. 5. Acknowledgement I am grateful to Professor Trappey for her advices on my term project, which lead me to the right direction and do the project better. I also appreciate the TA s great help during our website design and building. 6. References [1] Online Movies Rental System: the Case of Blockbuster (Chen, 2014) [2] The innovation of online booking system (Fang, Wu, & Zhang, 2012) 10