Operations and Supply Chain Management The Core

SERVICE PROCESSES chapter 7 235
ANALYTICS EXERCISE: PROCESSING CUSTOMER ORDERS
Analyzing a Taco Bell Restaurant
The following scenario was written by a reporter who became
a Taco Bell worker for a few hours to experience what it’s
like to work in the drive-through window at one of the most
high-tech, quick-serve restaurant chains in the world. As you
read, visualize how you could analyze a Taco Bell using the
queuing models we discussed in this chapter. After the scenario,
we will give you some hints related to how you can
model the Quick Service (QS) restaurant and then we will
ask you a series of questions related to your model.
It must always be, “Hi, how are you today?” Never,
“Hi, how are you?” “Hi, how’s it going?” or “Welcome
to Taco Bell.” Never, “What will it be today?” or, even
worse, “What do you want?” Every Taco Bell Service
Champion memorizes the order script before his first
shift. The folks who work the drive-thru windows at the
Taco Bell here in Tustin, California, about 35 miles
south of Los Angeles, and everywhere else, are called
Service Champions. Those who work the food production
line are called Food Champions.
You think you know it—“Hi, how are you today?”
It seems easy enough. And you follow that with, “You
can order when you’re ready,” never “Can I take your
order?” The latter puts pressure on the driver, who might
be a distracted teenager busy texting her friend or a soccer
mom with a half-dozen kids in the van. “They don’t
need the additional pressure of a disembodied voice
demanding to know their order,” explains Mike Harkins.
Harkins, 49, is vice-president of One System Operations
for Taco Bell, which means he spends all day, every day,
thinking about the kitchen and the drive-thru.
He has been prepping me for my debut at the window.
Getting ready, I wash my hands, scrubbing for
the mandated 20 seconds; slide on rubber gloves; and
don the three-channel headset that connects me to the
ordering station out in the lot, as well as to my fellow
Champions. I take my place at the window. I hear the
ding indicating a customer has pulled into the loop
around the restaurant, and I immediately ask, “Hi,
how’s it going?”
It gets worse from there. As a Service Champion,
my job is to say my lines, input the order into the proprietary
point of sale (POS) system, prepare and make
drinks like Limeade Sparklers and Frutista Freezes,
collect bills or credit cards, and make change. I input
Beefy Crunch Burritos, Volcano Burritos, Chalupas,
and Gorditas. My biggest worry is that someone will
order a Crunchwrap Supreme, a fast-food marvel made
up of two kinds of tortillas, beef, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes,
and sauces, all scooped, folded, and assembled
into a handheld, multiple-food-group package, which
then gets grilled for 27 seconds. This actually doubles
the time it takes to prepare a normal order. An order for
a Crunchwrap Supreme, the most complex item on the
menu, sometimes requires the Service Champion to take
up position on the food production line to complete it in
anything like the 164 seconds that Taco Bell averages
for each customer, from driving up to the ordering station
to pulling away from the pick-up window.
Above me on the wall, a flat-screen display shows
the average time of the last five cars at either the order
station or the pick-up window, depending on which is
slowest. If the number is red, as it is now, that means
one, or both, of the waits is exceeding 50 seconds, the
target during peak periods. It now shows 53 seconds,
on its way to 60, 70 . . . and then I stop looking. The
high-pitched ding that announces each new customer
becomes steady, unrelenting, and dispiriting—85 cars
will roll through over the peak lunch rush. And I keep
blowing the order script.
I fall behind so quickly and completely that restaurant
manager Amanda Mihal, a veteran of 12 years in
the QSR business (Quick Serve Restaurant, the acronym
for an industry that makes acronyms for everything), has
to step in. “You’ll get it,” Amanda says as she fixes an
order that I have managed to screw up. “Eventually.”
Every Taco Bell has two food production lines, one
dedicated to the drive-thru and the other to servicing
the walk-up counter. Working those lines is no easier
than wearing the headset. The back of the restaurant
has been engineered so that the Steamers, Stuffers, and
Expeditors, the names given to the Food Champions
who work the pans, take as few footsteps as possible
during a shift. There are three prep areas: the hot holding
area, the cold holding area, and the wrapping expediting
area. The Stuffer in the hot holding area stuffs
the meat into the tortillas, ladling beef with Taco Bell’s
proprietary tool, the BPT, or beef portioning tool. The
steps for scooping the beef have been broken down into
another acronym, SST, for stir, scoop, and tap. Flour
tortillas must be cooked on one side for 15 seconds and
the other for five.
When I take my place on the line and start to prepare
burritos, tacos, and chalupas—they won’t let me
near a Crunchwrap Supreme—it is immediately clear
that this has been engineered to make the process as
simple as possible. The real challenge is the wrapping.
Taco Bell once had 13 different wrappers for its products.
That has been cut to six by labeling the corners of
each wrapper differently. The paper, designed to slide