Transcript File - Quality and Six Sigma

Reducing Kitchen Overtime Payments
Project # 82462
Sheraton Grand Hotel & Spa
Project Leader – Jill Easton
Project Sponsor – Sacha Cauwels, Food & Beverage Director
Black Belt – Peter Cullen
Master Black Belt – Paul James
Project Justification
Problem / Opportunity
During 2001 our kitchen paid out just over $109,000 in overtime payments. So far in 2002, our
kitchen payroll is already $39,000 over budget as we head towards the busy Xmas and New Year
period.
We have 2 more full time members of kitchen staff than we have budgeted and we only have
marginal equivalent increases in F&B revenues.
2003 budget is written with the same ‘headcount’ (no. of staff) as 2002 and there is no plan to alter
the structure or operational style of the kitchen. If the pattern of the last few years is not changes,
the likelihood of kitchen payroll being considerably over-budget again next year is very high.
Overtime Payments Structure:Overtime Payments (1.5 x) are paid on any hours worked beyond 40 hours a week
Double Time Payments (2.0 x ) are paid if the person is asked to work on the 6th or 7th day of their
week
Context:The hotel has 2 restaurants (outlets)…The Terrace (120 seater buffet) and The Grill Room (45 seat
3 Rosette fine dining) and a large Banqueting operation able to do sit down meal x 450
All meals are prepared in a central kitchen traditionally split into 4 ‘corners’
Supplier
Input
Process
Output
Customer
SIPOC
SIPOC chart is used to
visualise the overall
process and all the
different elements that
need to align in-order for it
to happen
Do kitchen rotas coincide with
restaurant opening hours?
Marketing
Advertising
Rest Mngmnt
Awareness
Bookings process
Opening hours
Diary
Bookings
Exec chef
Menu
Sous chefs
Menu planning
Guest
The second main use of
the SIPOC chart was to
generate ‘searching
questions’ that we can use
to explore certain theories
Guest arrives at
restaurant
Guest chooses
meal
Covers
Restaurant
What is the range and complexity of the
menus and dishes that are on offer? How
Choice / Order
long
does each one Server
take to prepare?
Restaurant
Service staff
Recommendations
Guest
Guest’s choice
Rest rota
Server
HR
Order taking proc.
Rest Mngmnt
Note pads & pens
Server
Order / Check
Micros
Software
Server takes order
Check put through
to kitchen
What are the most popular dishes in each outlet? How
complicated are the most popular dishes and how long do
Check
they take
to make? Kitchen
Check-on
Separate corners
Printers
Which section of the kitchen
generates the most overtime?
What role do ‘stores’ play in
delivering produce to the kitchen?
Additional notes
Printer
How are the kitchen rotas put together? What
are the effects of holidays, sickness etc?
Order
HR
Chefs
Exec Chef
Staffing / Rotas
Stores
Different corners
External Suppliers
Ingred. / stores
Deliveries
Mise en Place
How much prep is involved? How far
ahead does it get done?
Meal cooked
Chefs
Is there enough equipment available at the
right time? Do chefs have to wait while
Stewarding
equipment is washed & cleaned, for example?
Meal
Server
How do the chefs know what to do? Do they have
to run around and find someone to ask?
Recipes
Pots & Pans
Ranges & Ovens
Crockery
Server
Original order
Kitchen
Servers
Restaurant
Meal
Engineering
Bell system
For big functions, how much can be cooked at
once?
Meal served
Meal Served
Trays
Guest
Meal
Cutlery
Place settings
Rest M.e.P
Service staff
Customer eats
meal
Revenue
Guest satisfaction
Guest
Voice of the Customer
Comment
Issue
Requirement
“The outlets have outgrown the kitchen. We’re
expected to do more and
more with fewer and
fewer chefs”
Menus (esp. Banqueting
& Bar) are far more
extensive and
complicated than they
used to be. Meanwhile,
kitchen ‘headcount’ has
reduced from 31 to 27
Budgeted staffing levels should reflect
the business levels and workload
required to provide the service that the
hotel demands
“Everything goes through
the sauce corner”
There are obvious bottlenecks in the way the
kitchen operates.
Bottlenecks cause
inefficiency and waste
time
Review operating procedures &
processes
“Lots of jobs in the larder
can be really long and
boring. Being on the veg.
section can mean peeling
carrots for 3 months”
Preparing all food from
scratch leads to boring,
monotonous jobs with
very little variety.
Jobs should be varied and interesting to
prevent excessive staff turnover and
dissatisfaction.
Purchasing pre-prepared items could
eliminate much of this unnecessary,
demoralising work
“Banqueting menus are
mostly old Grill Room
menus”
Menus that are now
made en-mass for
functions are based on
intricate and complicated
dishes that were
originally served in our 3
AA Rosette Fine Dining
restaurant
Menu engineering should encompass all
aspects of preparing the dish.
Labour demands, complexity, kitchen
capacity etc should be taken into account
as well as Cost Of Sales etc
Voice of the Customer
Comment
Issue
Requirement
“The split-shift for The
Grill is 10-3 then 7-11.
The Grill opens at 7 so to
get all your prep done,
you need to be here about
1½ hours before then!”
Kitchen rota is not written
according to the work
that is actually required
to be done
Kitchen rota should reflect both service
times and preparation time needed
“Doing a steak dinner for
300 people is a
nightmare. We can only
do 10 steaks on the grill at
once”
Some menus are not
necessarily easy to
prepare and cook which
gives rise to labourintensive production
methods
Menu engineering should take into
account the cooking methods labour
implications a well as more traditional
aspects such as Cost Of Sales
“Nothing comes is readydone. Everything has to
be prepped”
All food is prepared from
scratch which can be
laborious, tedious and
boring for chefs and
takes up a lot of time
Smarter purchasing might be able to
alleviate some of the more arduous tasks
in the kitchen without any detrimental
effect on the customers’ experience.
“Staffing is so tight that
whenever anyone goes
on holiday, someone else
had to do overtime”
Staffing levels in the
kitchen may not be
appropriate for the
necessary workload.
Staffing levels in the kitchen should
reflect the business levels and operating
style.
Voice of the Customer comments gave us further ideas and clues about some of the factors that might be
causing the overtime problem
Which section of the kitchen
generates the most overtime?
Total
160
Sum of Hrs @ OT
140
120
100
80
Total
60
Hours at Overtime Rate (1.5x) per chef
20
night
staff
terrace
pastry
sauce
0
entre
Hours actually worked per chef
40
larder
To answer this question we had to collect
data from the HR & Payroll system that
contained:-
Corner
Hours worked at Double Time per chef
We then manually went through 6 months
worth of kitchen rotas, noting who was
working in which section between which
dates.
These two sets of information were then
matched together to determine which
section of the kitchen people were working
in during the periods when they were
generating the most overtime payments
The feeling among the chefs was that the
Larder section would generate the most
overtime as this was this was the section
with the most diverse demands.
While this turned out to be true, it had to be considered
that there are up to 6 chefs in the larder section at any one
time whereas other sections maybe only have 1 or 2.
Therefore, it stood to reason that the larder would
generate the most. But was this the full story?
To dig a little deeper, we decided to have a look at the
same figures again but, this time, average them across the
number of people in that particular section…
…this time the answer was very different!
Which section of the kitchen
generates the most overtime?
At some point in the past, the night chefs had
agreed a shift pattern of 7 nights on, 7 nights off,
working 12 hour shifts.
Over the course of the 4 week pay period, this
means they would normally work 168 hours and
should receive:160 hours @ time
Average Overtime Hours
40
Average of Hrs @ Dbl
+ 20% Night Premium
35
+ 8 hours @ Time & Half
30
25
20
Total
As previously mentioned, the night chefs worked
a 7-day week. A horrible possibility began to
appear…which Payroll’s timesheets confirmed as
being true.
15
10
5
pastry
staff
terrace
entre
sauce
larder
night
0
Corner
The night chefs were generating over twice as much
overtime each as anyone else in the kitchen.
As the 2 night chefs have traditionally done such
regular shifts, this seemed very strange. We began to
look at what could be causing this!
The answer lay in their shift patterns
In actual fact, the night chefs were claiming
Double Time on the 6th and 7th day of each week
that they were working. This meant that they were
receiving:160 hours @ time
+20% Night Premium
+ 48 hours @ Double Time
Which section of the kitchen
generates the most overtime?
Total
160
Overall, the generation of overtime
across the 3 main kitchen sections
was quite even.
Sum of Hrs @ OT
140
120
100
80
Total
60
40
We began to look at some of the
processes involved in these areas to
see if any of the processes could be
improved and any time could be
saved.
We moved on to our next question…
20
Corner
night
staff
terrace
pastry
sauce
entre
larder
0
What are the most popular dishes in each outlet? How
complicated are the most popular dishes and how long
do they take to make?
The most popular dishes (across all the
outlets) were:Data on the most popular menu items was gathered from
the Micros POS system and analysed to give a ‘Pareto’
chart of the most commonly prepared dishes. Any
improvements we could make to the processes involved in
these dishes would have the greatest impact.
French Fries
Club Sandwiches
Chicken Sandwiches
Ham & Apple Chutney Sandwiches
Smoked Salmon Sandwiches
Menu Item Sales YTD 2003
4500
The ‘Grand’ Burger
Sum of No. Sold
4000
Soup of the Day
3500
3000
2500
Total
Cream Teas
2000
Egg & Mayonnaise Sandwiches
1500
1000
500
Menu Item
80% of all Outlet Food Orders
Pancakes
Chocolate Tart
Lamb Kofta
Chicken Breast
Smoked Salmon
Duck Broth
Flambe Banana
Potato Bilinis
T Prawn S/Wich
Smoked Duck
Seared Scallops
Ice Cream
Beef Medallions
Fillet Steak
Red Lentil Soup
Cheese Selection
Creme Brulee
Curried Red Lent
Herb Salad
Caesar Salad
Rib Eye Steak
PepperSteak
Saison 3 Course
Bakers Basket
Saison 2 Course
Fruit Salad
Trad Aft Tea
Egg Mayo S/Wich
Soup Of The Day
Grand Cream Tea
S Salmon S/wIch
The Grand Burger
Ham & App S/wic
Brunch
Chicken S/Wich
The Grand Club
Open Food
French Fries
2 Course Buffet
3 Course Buffet
0
Collectively, these 9 dishes account for 80% of
all the dishes that the kitchen produces
What follows is a series of flow charts mapping
some of the processes involved in preparing
some of these seemingly-straight-forward
dishes!
Ham & Apple
Chutney
Salad Leaves
Handmade Crisps
Ham & Apple Chutney
Sandwich
Filling
Handmade Crisps (served with all Sandwiches)
Crisps
Yam
Collect 120 eggs
from breakfast
fridge or stores
Ham
Chutney
Trim fat from joint
Collect blue tray
full of apples
(approx 40) from
fridge
Place in steamer
for 17minutes
Dismantle it
Put egg into the
manual slicer (see
photo) lengthways
and slice
(120 x)
Trim joint further
2 hours
3 hours
Put joint onto
machine
Does it fit?
Slice ham
Lay slices on
metal tray
Season & Mix
Clingfilm
Clingfilm
Is clingfilm
available?
VOC:“We have one roll for the
whole kitchen. You can
easily spend ½ hour a day
just looking for clingfilm”
Set up slicing
machine
Is clingfilm
available?
Find clingfilm
Find clingfilm
Cover with
clingfilm
VOC:“The joints are always
too big and never fit”
Put vegetables
through the slicing
machine
Put apple quarters
in a plastic bucket
Collect a big pan
from Stewarding
Is there a range
free in the veg
section?
VOC:“There’s never anywhere to cook
off the chutney. If you ask the veg
chefs if there’s a space free, they
just bight your head off”
Place sliced
vegetables in tray
Wait until available
Fill tray with water
Leave in fridge
overnight for
starch to dissolve
VOC:“The chefs in the Terrace just love
you when you go and pinch all
their stir fry ingredients!”
Drain slices
Take veg to
‘Bratpan’ fryer
Chop & sweat
shallots
Add garlic & chilli
Brat-Pan is one of the most
frequently used pieces of
equipment in the kitchen and
is rarely available
One full load of vegetables
requires 5-6 separate
batches to be fried owing to
size of brat-pan
Is it available?
Fry batches of veg
slices
Add apples
Cook for an hour
VOC:“You pretty-much have to stand and stir it
all the time or else the sugar in the apples
begins to burn to the bottom and it ends
up full of little black bits”
Spread slices out
on trays
Leave them under
the hot lamps for
2-3 hours
Cover with
clingfilm
Transfer to chiller
unit
Put in fridge
Put in fridge
Place them in
plastic containers
Repeat every 3 days
Clingfilm
Repeat every 3 days
Repeat every 3 days
Vegetables have to be put
through the slicing machine
one by one
Collect large flat
tray from
stewarding
Move to available
range
Collect Garlic &
Chilli from Terrace
Anything up to 2 hours for a
normal ‘batch’
(40 x)
Cut each apple
into quarters
Re-assemble it
Rotate egg onto
3rd axis and slice
again
Add mayonnaise
Turn handle until
apple is peeled
Is it clean?
Clean it
Turn egg through
90 degrees and
slice again
Empty perfectly
cubed pieces of
egg into plastic
bucket
Peel them
(by hand)
VOC:“Most of the time you
have to clean it first”
3 hours – not including possible delay for availability of range
Shell & Peel the
eggs (120 x)
Beetroot
Collect from stores
Put each apple
into the peeling
machine
Collect slicing
machine
VOC:“I’ve never been so
bored in my life””
Sweet Potato
Clingfilm
Wait until available
5 hours - not including overnight soak or possible delay for Brat-Pan
Egg Mayo
Egg Mayonnaise
Sandwich Filling
What are the most popular dishes in each outlet? How
complicated are the most popular dishes and how long
do they take to make?
The previous process maps highlight that a great deal
of chefs’ hours are spent preparing items that are:Very easily and cheaply bought-in ready-made
The cheapest retail food items available in the
hotel
Add little, if any value to the customer’s
experience (eg. Would you really care if the ham
in your sandwich was sliced by hand or by a
machine?!)
A further ‘soul-destroying’ process that the larder
performs (although not mentioned previously) is
the hand-picking of salad leaves for salads and
garnish.
Picking leaves is regarded as an on-going joke
among the chefs who, on a busy day, can spend
up to 6 hours washing, rinsing and picking the
leaves.
The reason…‘quality and cleanliness’.
The large volumes that these items are prepared in
means that a small improvement in the process of
each would make big impact to the overall workload of
the kitchen
A different Six Sigma project (concerned with
complaints, discounts, deductions and rebates)
had discovered 4 separate occasions in 3 months
that food had been sent back because of ‘foreign
objects’ being found in the salad leaves.
It was also suggested that the “soul destroying” nature
of some of these processes might be a contributing
factor to the staff turnover that exists in the kitchen.
Proof-enough that this time-consuming process
(done in the name of ‘quality’) was far from
effective.
Effect of 'Dish Complexity' (hrs per cover) to Kitchen Payroll
Kit Payroll = 5663.58 + 109470 Hrs per Cvr
S = 1955.12
R-Sq = 66.4 %
R-Sq(adj) = 63.0 %
40000
Kit Payroll
What is the range and complexity of
the menus and how long does each
one take to prepare?
30000
Regression
“Banqueting menus are mostly old Grill Room menus”
95% CI
95% PI
20000
0.20
If dishes that were designed for a 3 Rosette fine dining
room are being mass produced in large volumes as
part of our Banqueting offering, it is reasonable to
assume that these particular dishes might be quite
complicated, labour-intensive and time-consuming to
prepare.
To verify any link between this and the overtime
situation, we again went back to our payroll data.
By dividing the number of covers into the payroll data
we were able to calculate an ‘Hours per Cover’
productivity measure.
A correlation of this metric against the kitchen’s payroll
gives a correlation co-efficient of 0.815…considerably
greater than the 0.65 threshold
0.21
0.22
0.23
0.24
0.25
0.26
0.27
0.28
Hrs per Cvr
A fitted-line regression plot of this data clearly shows
that as the ‘hrs per cover’ increases, so does the
payroll. It is a positive correlation.
This suggests that if the dishes were made simpler
then the time required to produce each cover would
decrease accordingly and the kitchen payroll would
come down
How are the kitchen’s rotas put together? What
are the effects of holidays, sickness etc?
If the chef’s comments were true then you would
expect to see a positive correlation (>0.65) between
Holiday Hours and Overtime Hours
“Staffing is so tight that whenever anyone
goes on holiday, someone else has to do
overtime”
Hrs @ x 1.5
Hrs @ x 2
Total Hrs Worked
Hols Hrs
Hrs @ Time
-0.23
-0.65
0.90
-0.18
Hrs @ x 1.5
Hrs @ x 2
Total Hrs
Worked
0.10
-0.02
-0.23
-0.33
0.34
-0.15
Hols Hrs
Voice of the Customer comments from the Sous
Chef suggest that the current staffing levels are
already stretched, working to full capacity and
overtime is generated when chefs are either away on
sick leave or vacation (owing to covering shifts)
It can clearly be seen that there is no such result
either for Time & Half or Double Time hours
To verify this argument, we went back to our payroll
data to see if there were any correlations between
no. of holiday, sick, or other un-worked hours and
the volume of overtime generated
In turn, this suggests that any recruitment of extra
chefs (to help cover during holiday periods) would
potentially make no difference to the amount of
overtime generated.
We used Minitab statistics software to generate a
correlation study of the data
The solution is not to ‘throw people at it’
For a relationship to be established between two
sets of data, the correlation result needs to be
greater than 0.65 or less than -0.65
Therefore, if the kitchen’s rotas continue to be
structured in the same way, this argument can be
disregarded as a reason for overtime.
How are the kitchen’s rotas put together? What
are the effects of holidays, sickness etc?
Correllations between hours / over-time hours worked in the kitchen against
covers in the various F&B areas
“The outlets have out-grown the kitchen.
We’re expected to do more and more with
fewer and fewer chefs”
Further clues to the construction of the kitchen
rotas came from a more in-depth correlation
analysis which measured the productivity of the
kitchen against the number of covers served in
each outlet.
It was interesting to note initially that the Total
Hours worked in the kitchen (all salaried hours
plus all overtime hours) bore no relationship to the
Total Covers.
This suggests strongly that the rotas are not
necessarily constructed relative to the business
levels in the hotel.
1.5 hrs
2x hrs
TTL Worked Hrs
Hols hours
IRD BF
IRD Lun
IRD Din
Bar BF
Bar Lun
Bar Din
Tce BF
Tce Lun
Tce Din
Gr Lun
Gr Din
Banq BF
Banq Lun
Banq Din
TTL IRD
TTL Bar
TTL Tce
TTL Gr
TTL Banq
TTL Outlet Bf
TTL Outlet Lun
TTL Outlet Din
TTL Outlet Cvrs
TTL Bf
TTL Lun
TTL Din
TTL Cvrs
Time hrs
-0.23
-0.65
0.90
-0.18
0.10
-0.09
-0.10
0.60
0.52
0.29
0.05
-0.01
-0.28
0.39
-0.14
0.05
-0.38
0.09
0.00
0.48
-0.14
0.23
-0.12
0.23
0.49
-0.06
0.32
0.24
-0.09
0.05
0.08
1.5 hrs
2x hrs
TTL Worked Hrs
Hols Hrs
0.10
-0.02
-0.23
0.36
-0.09
0.25
0.25
-0.10
0.19
0.21
0.47
0.62
0.41
0.41
-0.05
0.04
0.42
0.27
0.07
0.69
0.60
0.36
0.36
0.20
0.63
0.64
0.30
0.18
0.61
0.69
-0.33
0.34
0.03
0.11
0.00
-0.45
0.03
0.19
-0.15
-0.14
0.09
-0.37
-0.23
-0.32
-0.12
-0.47
0.04
0.03
-0.11
-0.44
-0.52
-0.23
-0.10
0.12
-0.10
-0.40
-0.20
-0.35
-0.50
-0.15
0.25
0.06
-0.09
0.65
0.63
0.48
0.04
0.07
-0.13
0.44
-0.12
-0.10
-0.52
0.05
0.14
0.64
-0.03
0.28
-0.26
0.25
0.64
0.13
0.52
0.17
-0.16
0.10
0.07
-0.43
-0.28
-0.19
0.03
0.47
0.36
-0.16
-0.53
-0.41
-0.51
-0.36
0.21
0.05
-0.55
-0.40
0.40
-0.54
-0.65
-0.38
-0.26
0.00
-0.15
-0.22
-0.12
0.06
-0.53
-0.46
How are the kitchen’s rotas put together? What
are the effects of holidays, sickness etc?
The presence of a correlation between Total Covers
and Overtime Hours but not between Total Hours
Worked possibly indicates further that the rotas are
not being constructed around the business
Correllations between hours / over-time hours worked in the kitchen against
covers in the various F&B areas
1.5 hrs
2x hrs
TTL Worked Hrs
Hols hours
IRD BF
IRD Lun
IRD Din
Bar BF
Bar Lun
Bar Din
Tce BF
Tce Lun
Tce Din
Gr Lun
Gr Din
Banq BF
Banq Lun
Banq Din
TTL IRD
TTL Bar
TTL Tce
TTL Gr
TTL Banq
TTL Outlet Bf
TTL Outlet Lun
TTL Outlet Din
TTL Outlet Cvrs
TTL Bf
TTL Lun
TTL Din
TTL Cvrs
Time hrs
-0.23
-0.65
0.90
-0.18
0.10
-0.09
-0.10
0.60
0.52
0.29
0.05
-0.01
-0.28
0.39
-0.14
0.05
-0.38
0.09
0.00
0.48
-0.14
0.23
-0.12
0.23
0.49
-0.06
0.32
0.24
-0.09
0.05
0.08
1.5 hrs
2x hrs
TTL Worked Hrs
Hols Hrs
0.10
-0.02
-0.23
0.36
-0.09
0.25
0.25
-0.10
0.19
0.21
0.47
0.62
0.41
0.41
-0.05
0.04
0.42
0.27
0.07
0.69
0.60
0.36
0.36
0.20
0.63
0.64
0.30
0.18
0.61
0.69
-0.33
0.34
0.03
0.11
0.00
-0.45
0.03
0.19
-0.15
-0.14
0.09
-0.37
-0.23
-0.32
-0.12
-0.47
0.04
0.03
-0.11
-0.44
-0.52
-0.23
-0.10
0.12
-0.10
-0.40
-0.20
-0.35
-0.50
-0.15
0.25
0.06
-0.09
0.65
0.63
0.48
0.04
0.07
-0.13
0.44
-0.12
-0.10
-0.52
0.05
0.14
0.64
-0.03
0.28
-0.26
0.25
0.64
0.13
0.52
0.17
-0.16
0.10
0.07
-0.43
-0.28
-0.19
0.03
0.47
0.36
-0.16
-0.53
-0.41
-0.51
-0.36
0.21
0.05
-0.55
-0.40
0.40
-0.54
-0.65
-0.38
-0.26
0.00
-0.15
-0.22
-0.12
0.06
-0.53
-0.46
A couple of scenarios that would result in these
figures could be:The kitchen are already working at their maximum
capacity. Any additional business cannot be
absorbed into the existing work hours. So, as soon
as covers go up, the kitchen jumps straight into an
overtime situation.
However, if the rotas were proactively being
constructed around the needs of the business, you
would expect people to be brought in for whole extra
shifts, in which case it would either show in the Hrs
@ Time column or the Double Time column. Neither
is seen
The rotas are constructed irrespective of the
business levels within the hotel. So, if any additional
volume comes in, it can only be serviced by doing
‘additional hours’ on top of the existing roster.
Do kitchen rotas coincide with
restaurant opening hours?
Terrace
Open
Close
Service Dur.
Breakfast
Monday - Friday
Weekends & Public Holidays
07:00
07:00
10:30
11:00
3:30
4:00
Lunch
Monday - Saturday
Sunday
12:00
12:00
14:30
15:00
2:30
3:00
Dinner
Monday - Sunday
18:00
22:30
4:30
Lunch
Tuesday - Friday
12:00
14:00
2:00
Dinner
Tuesday - Thursday
Friday & Saturday
19:00
19:00
22:00
22:30
3:00
3:30
Grill Room
A ’10 Split’ shift is 10am – 2pm then 6pm – 10pm.
This means that Lunch Service either finishes at exactly
the same time as the shift or, in most cases, later.
Given that chefs have to ‘clean down’ their areas at the
end of service, how can this get done if the chefs have
already gone off-shift half an hour earlier?…unless they
are staying behind and generating overtime
The same situation exists at the end of Dinner Service
Similarly, it is unrealistic that a chef will walk to his
station and everything will be fully prepared and ready
for service at exactly 6 o’clock - just as service starts
Again, the reality of the job means that they will be
required to come in early to ensure Mise en Place is
complete before service actually starts…and accrue
more overtime
Our Recommendations were…
1.
Re-engineer the Night Chef’s shift pattern so they avoid working 7 days in one session.
2.
Re-negotiate the structure of Night Chefs pay to be wholly covered by a fixed salary
3.
Trial various bought-in, pre-prepared products to eliminate labour-intensive preparation of highvolume, low-return dishes
4.
Re-engineer Banqueting Menu to be more simple and less labour-intensive
5.
Assess the possibility of dividing the kitchen to give the Bar and Room Service a bespoke area
with all necessary equipment for their relevant menus
6.
Use productivity measures in new time-sheet system to ensure that rosters are written relative to
the volume and needs of the business
7.
Re-align shift patterns to more accurately and effectively meet the needs of the business and the
opening times of the outlets, allowing for preparation & pre / post service requirements
At the time of writing, the kitchen have already begun to trial various pre-prepared, bought-in food options
and the trials are going well.
Food & Beverage Control have agreed that deliveries and decanting of meat will be performed by them,
removing 4 out of 8 steps from the delivery process and potentially freeing-up an extra hour per day (
equates to over 360 hours per year or just over two working months!) of the Sous Chef’s time!
Owing to the imminent departure and replacement of our Executive Chef, the more organisational and timemanagement aspects of the kitchen are being put on hold until the new Executive Chef arrives and can be
briefed about this project’s findings
Improvements implemented…
1.
Night chef’s shift pattern changed from (7 on / 7 off) to (4 on / 4 off) with hours aggregated over the
month
2.
Various pre-prepared products are now being bought in. For example, mayonnaise, egg
mayonnaise, pre-sliced ham, chutney etc. Products were blind tested on members of the kitchen
staff and were positively received. VOC from kitchen staff regarding removal of ‘mind-numbing’
jobs has been extremely positive
3.
Banqueting & buffet menus are being totally re-designed as part of DMAIC project 23405 and the
‘labour intensity’ piece that overlaps between these 2 projects will form a major part of those new
menus
4.
Further inspection of the rotas suggested that the problems encountered there were mainly
centred on manning the Grill Room. In conjunction with a review of the business levels in the Grill
Room we have taken a decision to keep this outlet closed on a Monday, thereby reducing it to a 5
day operation with subsequent effect on overtime