Question

Elsa and her friend Olaf are co-owners of the world's largest ice cream truck, offering their customers the choice of 256 different flavors of ice cream. The truck, which has been built from an 18-wheeled tractor-trailer, houses the 256 tubs of ice cream in the refrigerated trailer. The side of the truck displays a large list of the 256 names of the different flavors, which the customers then name when they place their orders.

Business is booming and the duo needs to serve their customers quickly. However, in order to quickly find the right tub of ice cream out of such a large collection, Elsa and Olaf both agree that they need to use an efficient solution. Elsa suggests that they organize the flavors alphabetically while Olaf suggests that they organize the flavors in order from his favorite to his least favorite.
Which of the following solutions would allow these ice cream peddlers to find the customers' chosen flavors the most efficiently?
1) Organizing the flavors alphabetically
2) Organizing the flavors in order from Olaf's favorite to least favorite
3) Organizing the flavors randomly
4) Organizing the flavors based on popularity

Answer 1

Organizing the ice cream flavors alphabetically would be the most efficient method for Elsa and Olaf's ice cream truck to serve customers quickly, with the alternative of organizing by popularity as a potential method during peak times.

Step-by-step explanation:

Elsa and Olaf, co-owners of the world's largest ice cream truck, are trying to optimize their service by deciding on an efficient way to organize 256 flavors of ice cream. Given the need to serve customers quickly, the most efficient solution would be 1) Organizing the flavors alphabetically.

This method streamlines the search process for both the servers and the customers as the list of flavors displayed on the truck is alphabetical, and customers would generally expect this kind of order. Organizing alphabetically also removes personal bias which could change over time and make the search process inefficient. An alternative could be 4) Organizing the flavors based on popularity depending on customer patterns, which might speed service during peak times when certain flavors are ordered more frequently.