Improving Speed & Efficiency of Food Service in the Exchange Bar

1. Improving Speed & Efficiency of Food Service in the Exchange Bar Project no. 83673 Sheraton Grand Hotel & Spa Team Leader – Claire Sproates, Assistant Manager of F&B Sponsor – Sacha Cauwels – F&B Director Black Belt – Peter Cullen Master Black Belt – Paul James

2. Project Justification Data analysis from DMAIC Project 81926 ‘Minimising Rebates, Discounts & Compensations’ shows that food service in our Exchange Bar is a key source of complaints & rebates The processes and root-causes involved were deemed to be separate from the wider rebates project and, subsequently, this project was launched as a separate Quick Hit Over the passed year we have experienced an average of 16 ‘Speed & Efficiency of Food Service’ complaints a month in the Exchange Bar resulting in rebates of £340 ($540) per month.

3. internal Voice of the Customer

4. Voice of the Customer Our starting point had to be to find out our average food delivery time in the bar and see how this matched up against our guests’ expectations To measure our guests’ expectations, we used our existing Feedback Comment Cards to measure guests satisfaction levels with the Speed & Efficiency of Service

5. Voice of the Customer To calculate a ‘Critical to Quality’ (CTQ) service time for food delivery, we timed how long it took for orders to be delivered using the check sheet below. The feedback comment cards were collected from the people we had timed and we cross-referenced the satisfaction levels with the delivery times

6. Results of VOC Survey To ensure that all guests’ expectations (regarding speed & efficiency of service) are ‘exceeded’ we need to achieve a maximum service time of 14 minutes

7. Voice of the Customer Process Capability study shows that, with a Critical Customer Requirement of 14 minutes, our current performance would generate 523,231 Defects per Million or 1.44 Sigma We would ‘exceed’ our guests’ CTQ only 48% of the time VOC Survey and cross-referencing gives us an ‘Upper Specification Limit’ of 14 minutes

8. Process Maps for Bar Food Service The set-up of the Micros printers seemed an obvious source of potential problems The operation of the bell system (used for calling food away when ready) seemed to be a recurring issue The bar staff had obviously found their own ways of bypassing, shortcutting and negating some of these problems

9. The Bell System in detail ..and what happens when it goes wrong!

10. Most Popular Food items in the Bar Anything we can do to improve the speed at which these top 10 orders are produced would have the greatest impact These 10 menu items equate to 81% of all the bar’s food orders

11. Recommendations for Improvement • Re-programme Micros so that all printers display full order to all chefs (re-train & brief chefs accordingly) • Re-programme Micros so it does not print the name of the server on the top of the order, only the destination outlet • Mend, re-locate and label the bell system (re-train & brief chefs accordingly) • As the vast majority of meals served in the bar are ‘soup, a sandwich and a bowl of chips’, install a small fryer and soup terrine in the larder section of the kitchen to form a bespoke ‘bar snack’ area and minimise preparation times, travel time and possibility of bar orders getting ‘stuck behind’ a queue of orders from other outlets