scratchpad是个好东西之Starbucks&Lean

1. Lean can … provide store partners with better training and tools.
2. Lean can … improve store design and customer flow, along with other industrial engineering approaches such as Queueing Theory.
3. Lean can … reignite emotional attachment with customers by restoring the connection customers have with the barista, the product, the brand by helping the barista spend less time on making coffee and more time in connecting with the customer.
4. Lean can … help guide organizational redesign to bring leadership closer to the partners and customers; doing so, allows the Starbucks leadership to be closer to the Gemba, reduces the time-lag in the feedback-loop, and allows Starbucks to more quickly listen to and respond to customer feedback and concerns.

http://www.shmula.com/starbucks-why-lean-why-now/5639/

People should also check out the discussion on the Starbucks Gossip blog.

Main points of contention/discussion:

– Does *$ just want to cut labor cost or improve service with freed up time?

– *$ just wants to turn workers into robots (a common fear with lean)

– *$ is normally very top-down, corporate doesn’t listen (would be a barrier to lean)

– *$ is different than a factory, it’s a people business (but lean can still apply, I’d say)

– Tension between standardized methods and “our store is different”

http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2009/08/05/starbucks-experiments-with-lean

Mr. Heydon says reducing waste will free up time for baristas -- or "partners," as the company calls them -- to interact with customers and improve the Starbucks experience. "Motion and work are two different things. Thirty percent of the partners' time is motion; the walking, reaching, bending," he says. He wants to lower that.

Drink preparation

"spaghetti map

The only person who's going to know the work the best is the person on the front line."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124933474023402611.html#project%3DSTARBUCKS0908%26articleTabs%3Darticle

First, technically, Toyota figured out (with great benefit for the customer) how to achieve flow production in lower volume, high-variety environments. Ford's flow production worked best when offering only "any color you want as long as it’s black." But, customers eventually demanded more variety. And when faced with the need to respond, Toyota showed us that flow is possible even in complex product mix environments.

Toyota's most radical innovation.

Toyota's second, and most radical, innovation was to answer the central problem that came with Taylor’s Scientific Management: the inhumane treatment of workers doing manual labor. Toyota revolutionized the technical side of lean production with the inclusion of product diversity into the production flow. But more importantly, Toyota revolutionized the social dimension of work, respecting workers brains as well as their hands. So factory workers become knowledge workers.

The comparison with McDonalds is erroneous and misleading. McDonalds very business model seeks a highly cookie cutter approach. Therefore, McDonald's may be successful in implementing traditional Industrial Engineering (Taylorism and all that – not lean) in a very traditional, top-down, programmatic way.

Starbucks decided long ago – and reconfirms this every day – that a cookie-cutter store approach is not the pathway to success for their product, which is a higher-end, higher-priced coffee that emphasizes the customer’s experience. Each Starbucks store is different. The footprint is different, the customer experience is different. I believe Starbucks wants the customer experience from store to store to be consistent but unique. McDonald’s wants the customer experience to be exactly the same, totally common from store to store.

Starbucks wants the customer to enjoy the experience of being in the store, of interacting with the barista, of hearing the barista call his or her name. Starbucks wants the customer to appreciate the fact that the barista is highly skilled at crafting each drink to perfection and to the customer’s satisfaction.

I would argue that McDonald's and the others aren't doing lean, but Industrial Engineering. The technical side of lean without the social side isn’t lean at all.

Summary of evolution of lean – from Chicago meat packing to Starbucks

Chicago Meat Packing -> Henry Ford -> Toyota -> Starbucks

Chicago Meat Packing and the technical side of lean production -> the disassembly line

Henry Ford and the technical side of lean production -> the assembly line

Toyota -> revolutionized the technical side of lean production with inclusion of product complexity (for customer benefit). More importantly it revolutionized the social dimension, respecting workers brains as well as their hands (so factory workers become knowledge workers, the scientists).

http://www.lean.org/common/display/?o=1085

1. Increase efficiency/speed of service
2. Maximize lower labor levels
3. Save the company money/resources
4. Follow the “Shared Planet” platform (environmentally friendly)
5. Prevent workplace injuries

http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/_/2009/03/starbucks-tests-lean-operations-in-ohio-and-kentucky-stores.html