The Coffee Warehouse
scopeofwork.net
scopeofwork.net
The queue management models that work for banks, grocery stores, and warehouses do not fit the highly interdependent plant operations of a coffee shop--Poisson doesn't cut it.
At any given time, there's a good deal of work contained in the "head cache" of the workers (lack of transparency) and orders are (largely) interdependent due to the limited throughput and cornucopia of wait-states of the components that process them.
For a better analog, look at the classic French "brigade de cuisine" system developed by Escoffier and watch videos of high-end restaurants during service.
Pay particular attention to the expediter and notice how there's specialization, redundancy in labor, and semaphoring to manage exceptions, wait-states, and accommodate the entirety of the workload.
None of those strategies can be utilized (at-scale) in a coffee-shop due to vastly different expectations of workload processing timeline, quality, variance, available labor, expected margin, and physical plant size.
A large fast-food restaurant is middle-ground between these extremes.
Is this true in a Starbucks? Every order goes into the computer before it's made, whether via the app or at the register. Or are you referring to something else more specific, like performing and recording the individual steps in making a speciality coffee?
In a truly transparent system, one worker could take the place of another one by knowing which steps of an order have been completed, but that's not how their ticketing system works--nor should it.
In practice, hand-offs are done to other workers only for specialized low-variance duties (register).
I'd literally forget how to make cold drinks vs hot drinks when I switched, like I'd never done it, until I got into a new flow, and everyone found this to be hilarious, since I'd already been a software person and it was a regression being there.
I took the job because I needed some money and to make social connections, but I mostly just wanted to see if I could do it, and I couldn't.
Since then, I've learned to give myself a bit of grace when switching contexts. If I have a day zoned in on one part of the code, and someone brings up something I worked on a month ago, I'll have to stall for time while I hydrate my cache again. This limitation is somewhat debilitating, since adult life depends on constantly being anxious about invisible obligations and other bullshit that simply aren't in my conscious mind unless I'm specifically grinding on them.
I had the exact same issue switching from bakery, to line, to register.
Everyone else seemed to have this "context switching superpower". I watched two peers (we were all in high-school) seemingly effortlessly go from line to register and back to line 3x within the same shift. I couldn't.
I could do all of the jobs and was (subjectively) the best on-the-line (real-time 3D Tetris + flavor), but I could only be good one-job-at-a-time.
Truth regarding combining this with social interactions. Though I've never done it, I suspect my anti-job would be a bartender.
During a rush, each drink has a discrete series of tasks to be completed, and each worker can do their part without knowing anything about the rest. Take the order, print the receipt, hand it off to the barista, the barista makes each drink one at a time and puts it on the counter.
No head cache, no wait states. The bottleneck is definitely dependent on the barista steaming the right milk ahead of time and pulling the correct number/type of shots, but even a "bad" barista has a pretty straightforward set of tasks.
Unfortunate that the meat of the article is behind a paywall, because the way it is looking at Starbucks resonates with how I (fondly) remember it. I'm not a logistics person, so maybe I'm missing the point you are making!
Having worked a warehouse job as a teen and done data science consulting for a global restaurant chain, I'm certain Starbucks has done time*motion studies and concluded that the system is "good enough" given the huge variety of floor-plans and other physical plant limitations they need to operate in.
It's also worth pointing out that they recently greatly simplified their menu to improve service speed variance, throughput, and (in theory) quality.
There are absolutely tons of unavoidable wait-states (espresso group-heads, drip coffee filter changes, etc.) in the system that can't be overcome with automation at any sort of economic scale (and that's also OK).
Starbucks once tried replacing some of that with higher-margin single-serving automation (remember the Clover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Equipment_Company and it totally failed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfNoNTjcRbE ).
Aside from the customer waiting longer for their drink, this also impacted a skilled barista's ability to combine batches of milk across multiple drinks, etc.
Recently I walked out of a Starbucks because the staff were waiting on the customer before me to "run and get their payment," while I waited to order a drip coffee that I had cash+tip in my hand for. "We'll be with you in a second."
Interesting thought about the printed receipts. I found line-calling only being efficient for the hour of morning rush with 60+ customers/hour, and I've never actually seen it effectively used outside my own store which was incredibly well-run. So maybe assumed they stopped doing it because it was too hard to do well.
I also just realized they use this method at one of our local coffee-shops (Boxcar https://boulderdowntown.com/go/boxcar-coffee-roasters ).
It's a shame they've decided it wasn't worth the additional training-hours and shrinkage to continue the practice.
Interesting to think about. Local coffee shop baristas are more transparent about what's brewed and enjoy taking the opportunity to recommend a certain roast or origin if I'm not picky. However, their systems fall down when they're unexpectedly busy.
My local cafe that does both coffee and sandwiches (dine-in, to go and catering) is possibly the worst, not taking orders until they feel caught up on the sandwiches. You can end up waiting 10+ minutes just to get a cup of coffee. From a queueing/distribution perspective, they should be taking those orders constantly and letting them pile up so they have more information about what they need to make and they can reduce the mean wait time. On the other hand, their baffling system is charming and the people placing large orders love the attention and spend way more money than I do. :)
like, k-cup style?
Should probably add that in-store customers are third-class citizens; drive-through orders without customization get priority.
Interesting. Can they be certain that the device from which one places the order, is also taken along for the ride? Some people might order from a separate phone or tablet, which stays at home. Perhaps all of this customer's devices have the McD's app; and any one of them may trigger the order, by approaching the store.
Crazy invasive. Guess they want to see how far you drive and what route you get to get there.
It's best to get your order code, leave your phone at home and just pull up and say "I have order EM14..."
I once ordered ahead using the mobile app at a Starbucks. I got out of my car, only to find the doors locked, as they closed early for some reason. So I had to get BACK in my car, and sit in the drive-thru queue, just to pick up my already-completed drink, which I found infuriating. (actually, what was infuriating was that I really only order at that location to use their restroom, which of course was an option unavailable in the drive-thru for hygenic reasons)
At the drive-through speaker spend 10 seconds saying the code instead of 90 seconds ordering, with no chance of mistakes. The line still needs time to move, so the time savings isn't as big as it sounds, the order accuracy is what I appreciate.
You might save another 30 seconds at the payment window, they ask if you had a mobile order and then give you the receipt.
If the line has moved too efficiently, you will receive your drinks and be asked to wait in a reserved parking spot. This is the "time-out corner" for patrons with too many customizations on their large order, its still more convenient than picking up inside. In 5 minutes someone will bring the rest of the order to you.
The app has "20% off orders over $15" as a large incentive to use it.
Realistically this is your personal crusade and while you want Starbucks to change themselves for you, I doubt it would really move the needle at all on the sales slump they're having.
If I divide total transactions by total number of Starbucks, it works out around 2500 visits per week. On my own, I’m not moving the needle. But only 25 people thinking like me is a 1% reduction.
Incidentally in countries like Australia or Italy Starbucks has not made significant inroads apart from some tourist areas.
Maybe it is the baristas. I sent my girlfriend to order - I usually do - because I avoid interacting with people trying to sell me anything for the same reason I use adblock while surfing and don't own a TV set. If buying coffee is anything like described in this conversation the experience would probably have been a lot more negative. Seeing someone acting as a friend for tips.
On a same trip we ate in KFC - my first and last time. I was like woah - who on earth would actually choose to eat this crap given about any choice... Compared to that the Starbucks coffee was ok, maybe a little bland.
Of course we didn't order any pint sized sugary things Americans seem to prefer because we enjoy being skinny and looking good.
Especially especially if you're at Pike Place. It's not even the real original Starbucks location!
Unfortunately it means that any time you need anything from someone outside your team, it comes with a lead time of '3-5 business days' unless you know the magic words or you raise it up the chain.
(this is at a campus Dunkies where there's no drive-through, and I have a hard deadline to start my lecture. If there's no line at the register, and I've got five minutes before class starts in a room down the hall, it shouldn't take a logistical genius to get me a regular coffee in time for class)
While I was unable to view the entire article (paywalled), I suspect that some kind of priority queue that weights an order's priority by the user's distance to the store may be useful to solve the waiting issue.