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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 weekDouble 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 450All meals are prepared in a central kitchen traditionally split into 4 ‘corners’
Guest choosesmeal
Server takes order
Check put throughto kitchen
Meal cooked
Meal served
Customer eatsmeal
Menu
Menu planning
Guest
Restaurant
Choice / Order
Server
Order taking proc.
Guest’s choice
Note pads & pens
Software
Recommendations
Guest arrives atrestaurant
Awareness
Opening hours
Bookings
Covers
Check
Printers
Additional notes
Order / Check
Different corners
Staffing / Rotas
Ingred. / stores
Chefs
Mise en Place
Order
Recipes
Pots & Pans
Ranges & Ovens
Crockery
Check-on
Meal
Meal
Servers
Bell system
Trays
Original order
Meal Served
Meal
Guest
Cutlery
Place settings
Rest M.e.P
Service staff
Guest satisfaction
Revenue
Rest Mngmnt
Advertising
Marketing
Diary
Bookings process
Exec chef
Sous chefs
Service staff
Guest
Rest rota
HR
Rest Mngmnt
Server
Micros
Printer
HR
Exec Chef
External Suppliers
Deliveries
Stores
Chefs
Stewarding
Server
Kitchen
Restaurant
Engineering
Supplier Input Process Output Customer
Restaurant
Server
Kitchen
Separate corners
Server
Guest
Do kitchen rotas coincide with restaurant opening hours?
What are the most popular dishes in each outlet? How complicated are the most popular dishes and how long do they take to make?
How are the kitchen rotas put together? What are the effects of holidays, sickness etc?
Which section of the kitchen generates the most overtime?
What role do ‘stores’ play in delivering produce to the kitchen?
How much prep is involved? How far ahead does it get done?
How do the chefs know what to do? Do they have to run around and find someone to ask?
For big functions, how much can be cooked at once?
Is there enough equipment available at the right time? Do chefs have to wait while equipment is washed & cleaned, for example?
What is the range and complexity of the menus and dishes that are on offer? How long does each one take to prepare?
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
The second main use of the SIPOC chart was to generate ‘searching questions’ that we can use to explore certain theories
Voice of the CustomerComment Issue Requirement
“The outlets have out-grown 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 bottle-necks 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 CustomerComment 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 labour-intensive 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 ready-done. 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
To answer this question we had to collect data from the HR & Payroll system that contained:-
Hours actually worked per chef
Hours at Overtime Rate (1.5x) per chef
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.
Total
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
lard
er
en
tre
sau
ce
pa
stry
terr
ace
sta
ff
nig
ht
Total
Sum of Hrs @ OT
Corner
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?
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
Average Overtime Hours
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
nig
ht
lard
er
sau
ce
en
tre
terr
ace
sta
ff
pa
stry
Total
Average of Hrs @ Dbl
Corner
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
+ 20% Night Premium
+ 8 hours @ Time & Half
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.
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
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
lard
er
entr
e
sauc
e
past
ry
terr
ace
staf
f
nigh
t
Total
Sum of Hrs @ OT
Corner
Overall, the generation of overtime across the 3 main kitchen sections was quite even.
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…
Which section of the kitchen generates the most overtime?
The most popular dishes (across all the outlets) were:-
French Fries
Club Sandwiches
Chicken Sandwiches
Ham & Apple Chutney Sandwiches
Smoked Salmon Sandwiches
The ‘Grand’ Burger
Soup of the Day
Cream Teas
Egg & Mayonnaise Sandwiches
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!
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.
Menu Item Sales YTD 2003
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
3 C
ou
rse
Bu
ffe
t
2 C
ou
rse
Bu
ffe
t
Op
en
Fo
od
Fre
nch
Fri
es
Th
e G
ran
d C
lub
Bru
nch
Ch
icke
n S
/Wic
h
Ha
m &
Ap
p S
/wic
S S
alm
on
S/w
Ich
Th
e G
ran
d B
urg
er
So
up
Of
Th
e D
ay
Gra
nd
Cre
am
Te
a
Eg
g M
ayo
S/W
ich
Fru
it S
ala
d
Tra
d A
ft T
ea
Sa
iso
n 2
Co
urs
e
Ba
kers
Ba
ske
t
Pe
pp
erS
tea
k
Sa
iso
n 3
Co
urs
e
Rib
Eye
Ste
ak
He
rb S
ala
d
Ca
esa
r S
ala
d
Cre
me
Bru
lee
Cu
rrie
d R
ed
Le
nt
Re
d L
en
til S
ou
p
Fill
et
Ste
ak
Ch
ee
se S
ele
ctio
n
Ice
Cre
am
Be
ef
Me
da
llio
ns
Sm
oke
d D
uck
Se
are
d S
callo
ps
T P
raw
n S
/Wic
h
Po
tato
Bili
nis
Du
ck B
roth
Fla
mb
e B
an
an
a
La
mb
Ko
fta
Sm
oke
d S
alm
on
Ch
icke
n B
rea
st
Ch
oco
late
Ta
rt
Pa
nca
kes
Total
Sum of No. Sold
Menu Item
80% of all Outlet Food Orders
What are the most popular dishes in each outlet? How complicated are the most popular dishes and how long do they take to make?
Ham & AppleChutney
Ham Chutney
Trim fat from joint
Collect slicingmachine
Is it clean?Dismantle it
Clean it
Re-assemble it
Put joint ontomachine
Does it fit?Trim joint further
Slice ham
Lay slices onmetal tray
Clingfilm
Put in fridge
Is clingfilmavailable?
Cover withclingfilm
Find clingfilm
Repeat every 3 days
VOC:-“Most of the time youhave to clean it first”
VOC:-“The joints are alwaystoo big and never fit”
Collect blue trayfull of apples
(approx 40) fromfridge
Put each appleinto the peeling
machine
Turn handle untilapple is peeled
Cut each appleinto quarters
(40 x)
Put apple quartersin a plastic bucket
Collect a big panfrom Stewarding
Is there a rangefree in the veg
section?
Move to availablerange
Wait until available
Collect Garlic &Chilli from Terrace
Chop & sweatshallots
Add garlic & chilli
Add apples
Cook for an hour
Transfer to chillerunit
Clingfilm
Repeat every 3 days
VOC:-“There’s never anywhere to cookoff the chutney. If you ask the vegchefs if there’s a space free, theyjust bight your head off”
VOC:-“The chefs in the Terrace just loveyou when you go and pinch alltheir stir fry ingredients!”
VOC:-“You pretty-much have to stand and stir itall the time or else the sugar in the applesbegins to burn to the bottom and it endsup full of little black bits”
Egg Mayo Salad Leaves Handmade Crisps
Collect 120 eggsfrom breakfastfridge or stores
Place in steamerfor 17minutes
Shell & Peel theeggs (120 x)
Put egg into themanual slicer (seephoto) lengthways
and slice
Turn egg through90 degrees and
slice again
Rotate egg onto3rd axis and slice
again
Empty perfectlycubed pieces ofegg into plastic
bucket
Add mayonnaise
Season & Mix
Clingfilm
Put in fridge
(120 x)
Is clingfilmavailable?
Cover withclingfilm
Find clingfilm
Repeat every 3 days
VOC:-“We have one roll for thewhole kitchen. You caneasily spend ½ hour a dayjust looking for clingfilm”
VOC:-“I’ve never been sobored in my life””
Crisps
Sweet PotatoYam Beetroot
Collect from stores
Peel them(by hand)
Set up slicingmachine
Put vegetablesthrough the slicing
machine
Collect large flattray from
stewarding
Place slicedvegetables in tray
Fill tray with water
Leave in fridgeovernight for
starch to dissolve
Drain slices
Take veg to‘Bratpan’ fryer
Is it available?
Fry batches of vegslices
Spread slices outon trays
Leave them underthe hot lamps for
2-3 hours
Place them inplastic containers
Clingfilm
Vegetables have to be putthrough the slicing machineone by one
Wait until available
Brat-Pan is one of the mostfrequently used pieces of
equipment in the kitchen andis rarely available
One full load of vegetablesrequires 5-6 separate
batches to be fried owing tosize of brat-pan
Anything up to 2 hours for anormal ‘batch’
2 ho
urs
3 ho
urs
3 ho
urs
– no
t inc
ludi
ng p
ossi
ble
dela
y fo
r av
aila
bilit
y of
ran
ge
5 ho
urs
- no
t inc
ludi
ng o
vern
ight
soa
k or
pos
sibl
e de
lay
for
Bra
t-P
an
Egg Mayonnaise Sandwich Filling Ham & Apple Chutney Sandwich Filling Handmade Crisps (served with all Sandwiches)
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?!)
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 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
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.
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’.
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.
Proof-enough that this time-consuming process (done in the name of ‘quality’) was far from effective.
What is the range and complexity of the menus and how long does each one take to prepare?
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
“Banqueting menus are mostly old Grill Room menus”
0.280.270.260.250.240.230.220.210.20
40000
30000
20000
Hrs per Cvr
Kit
Pay
roll
S = 1955.12 R-Sq = 66.4 % R-Sq(adj) = 63.0 %
Kit Payroll = 5663.58 + 109470 Hrs per Cvr
95% PI
95% CI
Regression
Effect of 'Dish Complexity' (hrs per cover) to Kitchen Payroll
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?
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)
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
We used Minitab statistics software to generate a correlation study of the data
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
“Staffing is so tight that whenever anyone goes on holiday, someone else has to do
overtime”
Hrs @ Time Hrs @ x 1.5 Hrs @ x 2Total Hrs Worked Hols Hrs
Hrs @ x 1.5 -0.23Hrs @ x 2 -0.65 0.10
Total Hrs Worked 0.90 -0.02 -0.33Hols Hrs -0.18 -0.23 0.34 -0.15
If the chef’s comments were true then you would expect to see a positive correlation (>0.65) between Holiday Hours and Overtime Hours
It can clearly be seen that there is no such result either for Time & Half or Double Time hours
Therefore, if the kitchen’s rotas continue to be structured in the same way, this argument can be disregarded as a reason for overtime.
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.
The solution is not to ‘throw people at it’
How are the kitchen’s rotas put together? What are the effects of holidays, sickness etc?
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.
“The outlets have out-grown the kitchen. We’re expected to do more and more with
fewer and fewer chefs”
Time hrs 1.5 hrs 2x hrs TTL Worked Hrs Hols Hrs1.5 hrs -0.232x hrs -0.65 0.10
TTL Worked Hrs 0.90 -0.02 -0.33Hols hours -0.18 -0.23 0.34 -0.15
IRD BF 0.10 0.36 0.03 0.25 -0.43IRD Lun -0.09 -0.09 0.11 0.06 -0.28IRD Din -0.10 0.25 0.00 -0.09 -0.19Bar BF 0.60 0.25 -0.45 0.65 0.03Bar Lun 0.52 -0.10 0.03 0.63 0.47Bar Din 0.29 0.19 0.19 0.48 0.36Tce BF 0.05 0.21 -0.15 0.04 -0.16Tce Lun -0.01 0.47 -0.14 0.07 -0.53Tce Din -0.28 0.62 0.09 -0.13 -0.41Gr Lun 0.39 0.41 -0.37 0.44 -0.51Gr Din -0.14 0.41 -0.23 -0.12 -0.36
Banq BF 0.05 -0.05 -0.32 -0.10 0.21Banq Lun -0.38 0.04 -0.12 -0.52 0.05Banq Din 0.09 0.42 -0.47 0.05 -0.55TTL IRD 0.00 0.27 0.04 0.14 -0.40TTL Bar 0.48 0.07 0.03 0.64 0.40TTL Tce -0.14 0.69 -0.11 -0.03 -0.54TTL Gr 0.23 0.60 -0.44 0.28 -0.65
TTL Banq -0.12 0.36 -0.52 -0.26 -0.38TTL Outlet Bf 0.23 0.36 -0.23 0.25 -0.26
TTL Outlet Lun 0.49 0.20 -0.10 0.64 0.00TTL Outlet Din -0.06 0.63 0.12 0.13 -0.15
TTL Outlet Cvrs 0.32 0.64 -0.10 0.52 -0.22TTL Bf 0.24 0.30 -0.40 0.17 -0.12
TTL Lun -0.09 0.18 -0.20 -0.16 0.06TTL Din 0.05 0.61 -0.35 0.10 -0.53
TTL Cvrs 0.08 0.69 -0.50 0.07 -0.46
Correllations between hours / over-time hours worked in the kitchen against covers in the various F&B areas
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
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.
Time hrs 1.5 hrs 2x hrs TTL Worked Hrs Hols Hrs1.5 hrs -0.232x hrs -0.65 0.10
TTL Worked Hrs 0.90 -0.02 -0.33Hols hours -0.18 -0.23 0.34 -0.15
IRD BF 0.10 0.36 0.03 0.25 -0.43IRD Lun -0.09 -0.09 0.11 0.06 -0.28IRD Din -0.10 0.25 0.00 -0.09 -0.19Bar BF 0.60 0.25 -0.45 0.65 0.03Bar Lun 0.52 -0.10 0.03 0.63 0.47Bar Din 0.29 0.19 0.19 0.48 0.36Tce BF 0.05 0.21 -0.15 0.04 -0.16Tce Lun -0.01 0.47 -0.14 0.07 -0.53Tce Din -0.28 0.62 0.09 -0.13 -0.41Gr Lun 0.39 0.41 -0.37 0.44 -0.51Gr Din -0.14 0.41 -0.23 -0.12 -0.36
Banq BF 0.05 -0.05 -0.32 -0.10 0.21Banq Lun -0.38 0.04 -0.12 -0.52 0.05Banq Din 0.09 0.42 -0.47 0.05 -0.55TTL IRD 0.00 0.27 0.04 0.14 -0.40TTL Bar 0.48 0.07 0.03 0.64 0.40TTL Tce -0.14 0.69 -0.11 -0.03 -0.54TTL Gr 0.23 0.60 -0.44 0.28 -0.65
TTL Banq -0.12 0.36 -0.52 -0.26 -0.38TTL Outlet Bf 0.23 0.36 -0.23 0.25 -0.26
TTL Outlet Lun 0.49 0.20 -0.10 0.64 0.00TTL Outlet Din -0.06 0.63 0.12 0.13 -0.15
TTL Outlet Cvrs 0.32 0.64 -0.10 0.52 -0.22TTL Bf 0.24 0.30 -0.40 0.17 -0.12
TTL Lun -0.09 0.18 -0.20 -0.16 0.06TTL Din 0.05 0.61 -0.35 0.10 -0.53
TTL Cvrs 0.08 0.69 -0.50 0.07 -0.46
Correllations between hours / over-time hours worked in the kitchen against covers in the various F&B areas
Do kitchen rotas coincide with restaurant opening hours?
Terrace Open Close Service Dur.
BreakfastMonday - Friday 07:00 10:30 3:30Weekends & Public Holidays 07:00 11:00 4:00
LunchMonday - Saturday 12:00 14:30 2:30Sunday 12:00 15:00 3:00
DinnerMonday - Sunday 18:00 22:30 4:30
Grill Room
LunchTuesday - Friday 12:00 14:00 2:00
DinnerTuesday - Thursday 19:00 22:00 3:00Friday & Saturday 19:00 22:30 3:30
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
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 high-volume, 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
Our Recommendations were…
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 time-management aspects of the kitchen are being put on hold until the new Executive Chef arrives and can be briefed about this project’s findings
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
Improvements implemented…