Starbucks Manager Forced To Put Mr Potato Head Together For Two Hours
Starbucks is rolling out a company-wide speediness initiative, which can only mean one thing: forcing managers to take apart and put together a Mr. Potato Head for two hours straight.
To help her understand how work can be done more efficiently, Kim Landreth, a member of the lean team, brought a Mr. Potato Head to Ms. Jordan's store and sprinkled the ears, nose, lips and other accessories across several tables.
Using a stop watch, Ms. Landreth timed how long it took Ms. Jordan to assemble the toy and place it in its box. It took more than a minute. Ms. Landreth asked her to think about how she could complete the task faster. Moving items closer together shaved time, as did altering the order of assembly. Over two hours, Ms. Jordan amended the task. Her final time: about 16 seconds. "That really opened my eyes," she says.
Starbucks is slow. And not "artisinal" slow but incompetently slow. No wonder McDonald's and Dunkin' are grabbin' share. Though, I pity the poor managers who have to dismember and recombine a Mr. Potato Head for hours on end under stopwatch. I think that was in the final chapter of 1985, the sequel to 1984.
Latest Starbucks Buzzword: 'Lean' Japanese Techniques [WSJ] (Photo: jabneyhastings)
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Comments:
Considering the taste of their coffee I find it quite ironic that they used a 30 year old plastic toy as comparison.
We should do this with new bloggers, except with articles instead of potatohead bits.
Uh, Consumerist, I'm not paying to read that. Anyone have the full article text?
Great training idea! After getting slow service way too may times though, I'd like to see this training involve a painball gun or cattle prod (I'm looking at you Tim Horton.)
@Ben Popken: That's better than my idea you start a reality show with economic/smart consumer interventions (on twitter)
It couldn't possibly be any more insulting and degrading than the whole silly-assed Green Apron Book employee identity bullshit from a few years ago.
Organization has always been the key to speed. This is no surprise, although this is a great way of getting the concept thru. Some people tend to be sloppy and unorganized naturally, and thats when a better system would help the worker stay on task with ease. (As opposed to leaving them to figure shit out and wreak havoc)
I've worked a couple jobs where they basically showed you what your task was, and left you to decide how to manage your own workspace and such. That's probably not the best idea.
This is all good. It teaches teams and thinking creatively to improve on a process. But i dont get why there's no potato involved...
@Ben Popken: Perhaps re-emvoweling?
Start them with "Slw nws dy"
And move them to...
"Bn Ppkn y flmng bg f sqrrl dng! Hw dr y bfl th gd nm f th Rd Shck crprtn wth yr snky bg wrds nd fcts! wrkd t Rd Shck fr 10 yrs nd w wld nvr sll ny prdct t mn wh wld llw hmslf t b flmed wrng Sngg vn f h ws bng flmd wth Mg Mrc nd fncy Cnsmr Rprts scntst."
I look forward to ordering a Venti Creme Assembled Mr Potato Head on my next Starbucks visit...
Did the managers not know that if you do things differently it can speed up the process? Did they need to play with Mr Potato Head for 2 hours to figure that out? And now can they apply it to the job or are they still clueless? So many questions.
They should try this exercise with a disassembled hand gun.
Hilarity should ensue.
@henrygates: I think people just get stuck in their habits. Even after learning how to do something faster, they might just go back to what's comfortable.
Didn't Henry Ford figure this out about 100 years ago?
Yeah, because hastily made coffee is so much better... Screw it, why don't they just let the customers pull their own shots, that would save tons of time.
Um. Starbucks isn't slow, IMO. They make each drink specially and it's a quality product. I never have a problem getting my drinks in a timely fashion. If people want to go to Dunkins or "McCafe," let them - just makes the line move along faster.
Oh, man, I could so go for a baked potato right now. One without a silly mouth.
@Smashville: What's freaky is that I can read that. There was a study from the New England Journal of Medicine (I think) that says the brain can use its language base to fill in the gaps, negating the need for vowels.
@redskull: No he moved the same assembly past the worker who performed the same action each time. Starbucks is more of a customized batch assembly methodology.
Think Model T mass production versus Dusenberg engined frames with customized car bodies for each purchaser.
McDonalds has point of sale food manufacturing down related to the fast food side so I can see where McD's is probably really eating away at Starbucks- which was created as a "destination" originally - at least that is what the book said.
@dohtem: I've been through many of these 'exercises' myself and from my experience people do just that. Mostly though these games are played without any real idea of how to apply it to your job. In the end, the one who really wins is whoever is selling the workshop.
@henrygates: I would suppose that managers at Starbucks probably do not have a large background in manufacturing efficiency which is what this exercise is showing them.
Such issues as putting all your tools and supplies in the same place each time saves time looking for the tools and supplies, regular replenishment of commonly used items via a draw system saves from running out of that component at a critical point (and further delaying/getting customers mad while replenishing the component), and planning for demand (think the pizza guy premaking boxes when it is slow and stacking the boxes up) all help to push product and services faster through a store (which is basically a point of sale food making factory.)
Common sense dictates that a tall is less time consuming than a grande, when you just look at size. However, because of the complexity of some of the drinks, a tall caramel macchiato (espresso, milk, caramel) is going to be more complex than a grande iced coffee with milk (ice, milk, coffee) because the barista has to brew the espresso. If you happen to have that come in, it's more prudent to start the macchiato first, regardless of who ordered first. Use the seconds extra of brewing time to get the iced coffee customer out of the way, finish the macchiato, and make mental note of the next two drinks and quickly order them in your mind. Repeat!
Maybe I missed something here, but I don't think Starbucks is slow. From the time I order to the time I receive my drink, even in the busiest of times, I wait about 60 seconds max. Usually 30 seconds if it's slower.
Also, the Mr. Potato Head bit is a good exercise in lean manufacturing - finding wasted flow and eliminating it. It seemed a bit like this writeup was sort of mocking it as a meaningless task. This same type of thing is what Demind did to illustrate his theories on quality.
Yes, every employee at every Starbucks is always slow and incompetent.
A very even-handed assessment.
You may not like their coffee, Ben and Megan, but no one else even tries to make a good hot chocolate (I don't drink coffee). Every time I've gone anywhere else, I get a $2 Swiss Miss.
What is your problem with Starbucks, exactly?
@Ben Popken: I think we all need to do drills where we find the most appropriate cat pictures for a given post.
Either Starbucks are company stores, or franchises. Either way, it seems to me that corporate should have designed the workflow to be efficient already. I know McDonalds has workflow down to a science. Why should the manager be expected to figure this out? Why not just send the memo from corporate "here's the ideal setup and workflow" and be done with it?
@Laura Northrup: That is one drill I would like to be implemented. Will be interesting to see the results, really.
@brianary: That's exactly what I wonder about everyone who hates on Starbucks. What is your problem with them? They are a company, providing a product. Lots of people go there to buy the product because they like it and are willing to pay the price for it. They provide it quickly, and 99.999% of the time they do it friendly.
I don't understand the hate.
@pecan 3.14159265: Are you kidding me? My brain would explode! Though this would certainly work like a charm with normal people.
It's a good thing that I do not work in a Bar/Cafe/Restaurant. I have embarrassingly tiny blocks of memory. I use ATC-like "task stacks" (or whatever they are called in real life) to keep track of where I am at and what else is pending. That would be impossible to do in that kind of an environment.
The Lone Gunman is handed a Mr. potato Head series of parts...
What's this?
You assemble this as fast as you caOW!! EEEEEEE!!!! My EYES!!!!!MY EARS!!!!!!!!!!? What are you DOMMMmmmmmmphhhhh.
Well, you TOLD me to assemble it fast, and I didn't have a potato, so I improvised.
Dumbest "training" idea I've ever heard of.
To get Emperor's New Clothes about this, maybe the reason why Starbucks' sales have slowed is because people have switched to cheaper alternatives. McDonalds' coffee is half the price of Starbucks. Speeding up Starbucks isn't going to change any of that.
As the article notes, the stores are different enough in footprint, layout, customer requests, etc. that a lot of this stuff needs to be store-specific.
This actually sounds really good. If you ever worked you would know lots of people lack common sense about how to make jobs easier.
Learning process flow isn't easy, and in many cases, isn't intuitive. The Mr. Potato Head is a great way to show that you can, by thinking about a process and working on streamlining it, radically improve its effectiveness.
@andrewe: brilliant...now if we could just use that same idea for the self checkout line at the grocery store...take more than 5 seconds to scan an item and BZZZZAP!!!
I HAVE OPINIONS:
1. Starbucks isn't slow! Well, okay, sometimes. Thankfully their asynchronous order/fulfillment approach solves a lot of the bottleneck problems.
2. Managers should have to play time management video games. That would be far more instructive than playing with Nature's Most Boring Toy.
On the rare times I go to Starbucks I usually have to wait 3-4 minutes minimum for a drink, even when it's not that busy. I once waited there for ten minutes because no one ever started my order.
@Verucalise-WelcomeBethany: Anybody remember the Gilbreths of Cheaper by the Dozen, early efficiency experts back when it was called "motion study"? Mr. G. used to say that he wanted to see how the most bone-idle lazy employee did his job, because that guy always wasted the least effort.
@krom: It's not far-fetched, is it? The cashiers at the grocery store are almost obsolete since all they do is pull groceries across the scanner and hand me my receipt when I'm done paying. I handle the entire payment transaction myself. I swipe my own card, approve the amount, sign the pad, and wait for the cashier to hand me the receipt. I can reach over and grab the strip of paper by myself.
@gryklin:
Excellent? I dunno, wouldn't it be better to train them to do actual things?
Fun? I dunno, that would get boring quick and also seem pointless if you were smart enough to think about the above.
Creative? Ok...
I'm amused by the myth of Japanese efficiency that fuels articles entitled "lean Japanese techniques". People who actually live here know that Japan is one of the least efficient countries in the world. Not only are people slow and overly meticulous when dealing with you, but they waste hours in unproductive meetings on a regular (sometimes daily) basis. If you think the Japanese spend 12 hours a day in the office because they work so hard, then you've missed the bigger picture - they spend 12 hours doing what it takes most Americans to do in 7.
That being said, they are good at following rigid guidelines. Once their Starbucks employees are taught a method (and that'd include precise placement and movements), they'll follow it like a robot. They just don't do it very damn fast because they'd rather take twice as long doing it than risk making a small mistake.
@Chris Barrus: If they can process more customers in an hour, they can reduce their staff, and reduce prices, to compete with McDonalds.
i think this is an excellent way to train employees. fun and creative.