Systems

I've been trying a new system in my market booth the past few weeks. We've always had a front person who takes orders, makes change and drinks, and then directs customers around the side of the booth to the other person who cranks out the food. The front person moves people through their line as quickly as possible, and when it's busy there can be a bit of a wait before the food is ready. When I'd set up the system I'd assumed that if each part of the operation ran as quickly and efficiently as possible, then the whole process would be optimally efficient.

When I was snowed in around Christmas time I read a "business novel" called The Goal, one of those unfortunate books that introduces business concepts by trying to weave them into a story. In spite of my difficulties with the format, I did learn something. The book is about a plant manager who is told that he's going to lose his job if he doesn't dramatically improve efficiency. So he finds a guru who tells him to look for "bottlenecks", or places where things get backed up. He finds ways to move things more efficiently through the bottlenecks and this makes the whole operation more efficient and profitable, and he gets to keep his job and save his marriage.

I asked myself if there were any bottlenecks in my own systems, and the only thing I could think of was the way the line would get backed up as people waited for food to come off the grill. So lately we've been taking a few orders at a time, and the front person works with the back person until they're all filled, and then we take a few more orders.

It's taken us a little while to get the hang of it, but it feels smoother every week. We don't seem to be selling any less food, and folks do seem less ornery because they don't have to wait in line twice.