Tag: Restaurant
How Chick-fil-A Uses Lean “Game Film” to Improve Drive-Thru Flow
TL;DR: Chick-fil-A improves drive-thru flow by using Lean thinking and "game film" to study the work, remove bottlenecks, and design better systems--while showing deep...
Still Dreaming About Sukiyabashi Jiro: Sushi, Speed, and the Meaning of...
tl;dr: A visit to Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo offers a vivid Lean lesson: extraordinary quality and efficiency, but at a pace that raises questions...
How Kura Revolving Sushi Uses Mistake-Proofing to Improve the Dining Experience
Mistake-proofing -- or poka-yoke, in Japanese -- is about designing processes so errors are less likely to happen. It's rarely all-or-nothing. Instead, there's a...
Batches Can be Bad, But Might Be Necessary (for Spaghetti or...
At the recent Healthcare Systems Process Improvement conference, David B. Reid, P.E. from Chick-fil-A Restaurants brought up a very interesting point about the batch...
Chef Gordon Ramsay on Never Making the Same Mistake Twice
I loved a recent New York Times article about Chef Gordon Ramsay, including this part:
"Ramsay said that when he makes a mistake, he owns...
What Wolfgang Puck Teaches Us About Continuous Improvement and Lean Leadership
Wolfgang Puck practices Lean and Kaizen without calling it that--by developing people, learning from mistakes, focusing on customers, and improving every day. This post...
A Bartending Mistake That Stuck: The Story of the Negroni Sbagliato
TL;DR: The Negroni shows how clear standards make variation visible--and how unnamed variation shuts down learning. The Negroni Sbagliato proves that when mistakes aren't...
Making Defects Visible at Krispy Kreme, Healthcare, and Elsewhere
Here is a photo that I took a few years ago at a Krispy Kreme store. For health reasons, I don't go there very...
Reducing Waste to Make Up for Higher Material Costs — Lessons...
As somebody who moved to Texas in 1999 ("I wasn't born here, but I got here as quick as I could"), I love Texas...
Rather than Blaming Employees, Managers Must Take Responsibility for Problems –...
Eight years ago today, I published a piece originally on LinkedIn as part of their "Influencers" series:
Rather than Blaming Employees, Managers Must Take Responsibility...
When the Chef Goes and Sees (Well, Tastes) the Problem
A few years ago, my wife and I went to a highly-regarded (and oft-recommended) restaurant in the Orlando area (our now former home).
I...
Third Time’s the Charm for the Iced Tea — On Errors,...
This past weekend, an old friend came down from Michigan to spend two days in the Dallas area.
Amongst the activities and catching up, we...
