Starbucks aims to reduce the time employees spend making drinks

The company's goal is to serve more drinks with the same number of workers or even fewer workers. This story says: "Under a new initiative ... there will be no more bending over to scoop coffee from below the counter, no more idle moments waiting for expired coffee to drain and no more dillydallying at the pastry case." Read "Latest Starbucks Buzzword: 'Lean' Japanese Techniques" || This initiative was discussed on this site in March. || Jump to the second page of comments.

Comments

[Freve]

We've really made lean work for us. Lean to me meant being given the power to change the layout of our store to make it easier for us to be productive, instead of following ridiculous standardized schematics that don't work for every store. Our pastry case is ready in less than 6 minutes in the morning. Completely moving the cold beverage station made our speed of service and transactions jump up. Moving the brew and grinding station made it so we have to walk less than 4 steps to reach cups, coffee or grinder from the registers. I love lean!

[Barista Ben]

Lean to me means we actually run out of coffee more often because of some extremely stupid coffee cadence that only works when there's no one ordering coffee in quantity. Our fix? Start brewing full batches of pike, which wastes more coffee, but god forbid you ever go out of order from the cadence or it falls apart! We keep running out of the bold pick, so we've had to start brewing more of that -- and now we run out of the whole bean brew 5 lb bullet. This whole lean thing irks me.

Anyone see the videos on the back portal? You ever notice how the first parts are full of mindless chatter about how AWESOME! lean is? Maybe now that I no longer drink the kool-aid I am seeing what has always been there.

Personally? Not a fan of lean because we're told, in my district, that "this is how you do it now. No exceptions" So we lose one ridiculous standardized schematic for another. Still, other districts with DMs who aren't horrid probably are doing better?

[CamSpi]

I like a little meat on my muscle.
Lean has not been 100% effective in my store. Sorry, Cliff. Our friendliness Customer Voice scores are deteriorating, and LEAN is a variable in that move.

[CanuckBarista]

I don't like the idea of this being implemented the way Barista Ben has had it i.e. "this is how you do it now. No exceptions." But I think an open mind is important in a situation like this. When it comes to my store, I'll certainly give it a try. If I find that it makes things easier and/or faster, I'll continue. If not, then we'll do things the way we do it now. It can't hurt to try.

[Bearded Barista]

At first I didn't think Lean would work in my store, it seemed like too much work for just brewing coffee, but after getting used to it, it does seem like we are out of coffee less often, I just wish we didnt have to grind every time before brewing... although our coffee waste from grinding too much and dumping it later because we ground too much has pretty much dissapeared. There is just usually an adjustment period when we need to learn new habits, thats the roughest part. Speaking of Lean, does anyone know anything about the new cash management procedures for Lean they are going to implement next? I saw something about it on the Portal this morning, but didnt have a chance to read it in depth.

[Asher]

First we have Burrows running around screaming threats and barking orders, and anyone who asks for advice is simply told "Figure it out." Nice job Mr. "I make $750k a year to be a dictator!" Now we've got this guy running around with a Mr. Potato Head? And they wonder why there's such a disconnect between the stores and senior leadership...I'll bet they're sitting in a big meeting right now thinking "Hey, do you think we should have a MRS. Potato Head for all the FEMALE managers and a MR. Potato Head for all the MALE managers?" Oh, wait, that would cost money...scratch that...

[drive]

Go Erik!

I am all for efficiency but the real problem is that store design sucks. Our store is designed to impede quick and efficient movement. Our office/refrigerator is down a long hallway from the cafe and our storage is in a basement. Some local stores have to take their garbage out by going into the building next door and taking the elevator to the basement.

Our labor is deployed badly. How about not emptying the trash so often? In our store, the trash is emptied when it is about 1/3 full. We have eight trash cans in the cafe alone. The labor spent emptying and relining these trash cans could be better spent on other things.

I will never talk less to the customers. That is the best part of the job.

[Lean Thinker]

Don't knock Mr. Potato Head!

[curious]

No time allowed to breathe, people!!! Not one penny of your wage will be unearned. Sheesh!

[looong time shift]

Starbucks aims to reduce the time employees spend making drinks -or- Starbucks aims to reduce the spending on employees making drinks

Optimal Scheduling, Lean thinking, 4th quarter pushes. We already have less people working at stores in my area. Once we have more of the lean thinking established we will have 3 or 4 people who work carts in pairs (because they are easier to clean and everything is in arms reach) and they can be in malls with less to pay for a lease. The people who work the carts wont be allowed to have a 2nd job nor go to school because it wouldn't be optimal to split concentration away from work related actions. We are going to have to drive around not clocked in and pick up transferred cleaning products for our carts because why would we want to order 1 whole case of Spirit cleaner when we only need like 4 bottles a month.

[Tracy]

mall cart leases are huge.

[Jennifer]

Starbucks is treating their employees and customers more and more like mere numbers everyday.... work harder for less money, get the customers in and out. The Starbucks experience has turned into an ugly joke.

i suggest the employees unionize before they get their heath care taken away, because that could be just around the corner.

as for me, i have decided to go out of my way in the morning to the local independent coffee shop and shell out the extra 75 cents for my latte and get treated like a human being for once.

i am done with giving these jerks my money.

[NortheastASM]

Freve~ just curious, how is your pastry case ready in 6mins in the morning? I cannot see how that is even possible.

[Legendary or I am out of here]

Fastest I have done food case is 15 min

[michael]

I'm with jennifer, Starbucks is turning into Mcdonalds and i am sick of it.

i am going to the local coffee shop from now on.

[chloe]

NortheastASM - it takes 6-7 minutes if you're in a frozen food market and the closers set everything out for you and all you have to do is pull off plastic wrap and put back in the case. (If it takes much longer than that the closers aren't setting you up for success.) Fresh markets, yeah, that's impossible.

[Aces of Eight]

The funny thing is, you can all talk about how lean is stupid, but really... if you are an adaptable human being you don't even need lean to be fast. And if lean isn't working for you, you can easily adapt it to work for you. It's not like you must do things perfectly the lean way, their are ways to be flexible if it doesn't work the same standard way for every store. We have an extra brewer during the coffee cadence and actually pay attention to the coffee levels, so if one is going to low, we can use the extra brewer and an extra urn to brew a batch and set it on 30 minutes. Or just brew the next coffee in cadence before the timer goes off. Sure, if you just follow cadence like a robot, you are probably going to run out of coffee. But if you consider it as a useful system and actually pay attention to it, and do things outside of orthodoxy when necessary you will find that it works bloody fine.

Look I don't like the direction the company is going in either, but some of the whining is just ridiculous. Lean practices are something we have to accept for the time being because the company is not doing very well. And for heavens sake, why would we complain about being efficient? If you are truly using lean properly, you are not just using by the book methods, you are using a useful system in a way that works for you, adapting it to your needs, it's what humans do to make something work. If you are truly being efficient (lean) you are doing more work, quicker with LESS EFFORT. Why complain about being able to do the same amount of work without putting in as much effort?

Doesn't this contradict what people have been complaining about, that they didn't have time to connect with customers? If you are being more efficient you have more time to connect with customers. And as the the argument that turning your back on the customers every eight/twelve/24 minutes is not legendary(when your store only has two people on the floor). Really? Is it more legendary to only brew the coffee every 30 minutes, and to constantly run out of coffee because you are only using two urns? I am sure the conversation of "we are a coffee house and have no bloody coffee brewed" was a LOT MORE LEGENDARY, right? Right? Come on people. And to anyone who says cadence doesn't work, that means you are being totally inflexible.

Sorry, but you are and it just sounds like whining. If you know how to anticipate your coffee levels and the average traffic at your store, you actually use the system and, this is important, watch your coffee levels and brew a batch on a thirty minute timer if your levels are getting low and they will not come up on cadence soon enough. Then you will almost never have to tell people you are out of coffee, now, personally I find it to be a lot more legendary to tell people every eight/twelve/twenty four minutes that they you will be right with them because you have to brew a pot of coffee (and in the mean time the other person on the floor can TAKE THEIR ORDER! What is so un-legendary about that?) and always have fresh hot coffee ready for the customers. Or to have to tell customers all the time that you have no fresh coffee and that they will have to wait FOUR minutes for it to BREW.

Hmmm... doesn't seem like much of a tough call to me.

Seriously, the company is doing badly, and is trying to be efficient, I don't see how it hurts things that badly. I am not a kool aid drinker, I think there are a ton of problems caused by upper management and things are getting worse. But this is NOT one of them.

I feel like some people just complain about EVERYTHING. Complain about the stuff that matters like a coffee house brewing only one kind of coffee all day every day. Stop getting your hair in a knot because you are being asked to be efficient. Seriously, of all the silly things to complain about, you are complaining about getting more work done, quicker, with less labor, less tense conversations with customers and less (as far as I see it, stress).

[Melody]

Isn't the real question something like, "where does the extra time go?" If Starbucks figures out a way to be more efficient, and instead of 90 seconds of making a drink, it takes 30 seconds, and you get 60 seconds to chat with the customer that's great.

If all you do is re-start the race to the next Venti Liquid Candy Bar, that's fast food. Being efficient can hardly be called a bad thing, but what kind of atmosphere is created with it? What's next, you blink and you missed out on your precious 4.5 seconds of saying hello to the barista? Sorry, you got 4.5 seconds allotted to your Starbucks experience, you snooze you lose.

Freve, was your store way out of whack before lean started?

[Barista Ben]

Thats just it Aces of Eight. Lean doesn't work at my store. We never had an issue with wasting ground coffee. I am not trying to brag or lie, we ground just enough so that by the end of the night 3-4 hours before close - we would run out. By then you just grind however many spoodle's you will need until closing time and your set. We are now actually going through more coffee because if we don't overbrew, we run out. Easy problem to fix, go back to the way things were and we'd be fine? That isn't an option. Regardless of how much more we are going through coffee Lean is what we *must* do. It isn't a choice. We are told its better, even if it isn't, and aren't given a choice to tweak it.

Even worse, every 8 minutes? Really? We already have our labor cut down so much that in the rush times we usually have 2 people now. It's becoming more and more rare to have 3 out on the floor during the rush. When am I supposed to brew the coffee? As it stands now I have to ignore more customers or else I ignore the coffee. I think customers should come first but then you've got hour old coffee sitting there or no coffee at all and its a pain in the arse to juggle all this.

Personally I wish they would just give us another person on the floor -- or hey -- how about we go back to brewing enough to meet customers needs and then some. I rather enjoyed back in the day of never running out, waste be damned.

[Sam]

is anyone else sick of corporate bullying, UNION now!

[Shift Supervisor]

Starbucks has gone from a fun customer and partner oriented company to a typical "corporate" kind of company where the only thing that counts is what the suits decide and I am sure 95% of them have never worked in a store so they have no idea what they are talking about when actually doing the job. I wish all these DM's, RM's and the decision makers would come into these stores and do the actual work and fill out your duty roster and call down the line and do EVERYTHING, 10 minutes slides and they can see what it is like or they can actually show us the proper way to do things and teach us. From what I have seen they talk the talk but the trip and cannot walk the walk. They expect when we get promoted that we do the old job and the new duties that we get when we get promoted. Shouldn't the DM's and RM's be expected to work and run a store also instead of blindly dictating impossible stuff. EVERY store is different but they expect the same out of all of them.

[me myself and I]

When I started, "the suits" where expected to work one week a year in a store. Partner Appreciation Day the local office closed and everybody was expected to help out in a store for a few hours before they could have a little party.
Everyone hired in an office position had to be trained as a barista, managers even got a two week training as Shift supervisors.
Does anything like that still happen? I haven't seen any of this going on anymore for at least three years.
That is probably why there is such a big disconnection.

[Pat Nerr]

How did the "customer wants coffee, customer pays for coffee, barista makes coffee" business model get so F'd up at Starbucks... (and I don't mean that as a question)

[spence]

Aces of Eight,
Almost every time you write something, I want to cheer. I agree with everything you wrote.
On the flip side, I do believe we are too lean. If DM's actually expect everything done in the store that is on the Quasi and daily, weekly, monthly lists, they are out of their freakin mind. We aren't even close and the store is getting dirtier by the minute. Working more efficiently helps. Not stressing over what you can't change helps more.
I hated the cadence when we started it. HATED! I still look forward to noon when it drops to 12 minutes. But, it does work. It works well. I'm flexible enough to make bold when it's time for decaf or whatever.
I have noticed that there is much less senseless whining and drivel lately.

[Sam]

i have a feeling some corporate ass kissers come on here to defend starbucks every shitty move.

[smoothienotvivanno]

As someone else said earlier - the Starbucks experience has turned into an ugly joke. It is but a shadow of its former self.

My store has always been rather lean. Now it has been taken to the ridiculous level. I dread going to work. At the end of a shift I am much too tired to do anything else.

Partners have to work more hours than they'd like, there are fewer partners, there are no partners to cover shifts.

More and more, 'connecting with customers' is really just trying to upsell them to this drink or that pastry.

After 6 years, I think my days at Starbucks are numbered...

[Christin]

"Even worse, every 8 minutes? Really? We already have our labor cut down so much that in the rush times we usually have 2 people now. It's becoming more and more rare to have 3 out on the floor during the rush. When am I supposed to brew the coffee? As it stands now I have to ignore more customers or else I ignore the coffee. I think customers should come first but then you've got hour old coffee sitting there or no coffee at all and its a pain in the arse to juggle all this."...

ummm if you were brewing 3 coffees, and starting a 30 minute timer when you brewed each one, you were technically brewing a batch of coffee every 8 minutes allready...maybe not exactly ever 8 minutes but it averaged out to every 8 min.

The Cadence is Logical, mathmatically makes sense, and is only going to cause problems if you are doing it wrong. I'm sorry. It's almost the same as what we were doin before, but honestly it's actually simpler.

[Thought of the Day]

Hopefully "lean" also includes no more time for the "up-sell"... One could only hope!

[OverCaffeinated]

I don't know, lean seems to be working out in our store. I mean, ever since we cut labor down to bare minimum and implemented a bunch of ridiculous lean programs, our customer count has dropped so low, we now have plenty of time to do everything :)

[barista james]

In Theory I'm a fan of lean thinking but I definately think there are some kinks that aren't taken into account by somebody at a desk or even just watching with a spaghetti map. I'm good with the cadence but I just moved my grinder so I can grind and brew and its messy. grinds are falling into plexies and cups. Now if I need to move my beans to the counter which I know my DM will not like as he has always told me to put them in a cabinet I have no where to put the cups. I already jacked up my cbs to shift things around. I agree with the person that says it could be fixed with a better store design.

[calmdown]

I'm okay with aiming to get things done faster, not at breakneck or sloppy speeds, but efficiency is never a bad thing. But in our store the biggest problems in regards to how fast drinks are made comes from the cashier trying to rush through the order and missing something crucial the customer wanted. I hope they keep in mind that some things need time.

As for cadence, it would be better if it were just morning pick and decaf. Pike Place is our staple coffee, all the grinds WILL be used before expiration, so in that respect cadence is only adding time away from serving customers.

On another note, our customer voice has been raised, but mostly in respects to cleanliness and customer service. I think corporate needs to consider that when we communicate with customers and put them at ease time goes by faster and they come out happier.

[SOH]

I'm sick of Howard, Cliff, Lean, and Starbucks. I think many partners are (especially SM's). When the job market turns around (and it will), Starbucks will be in a world of hurt. Partners will be leaving in droves and then Howard and Cliff will see how great Lean works with no training for replacements.

Yet another STUPID, poorly planned idea that Starbucks management ran with.

I hope Howard and Cliff know how to run a store and make drinks at the bar. They may need to put on a green apron and actually work soon.

[looong time shift]

Lean is expecting all partners to work at 110% for 100% of their shift. We have given them more time for Optimal Scheduling which means we are stuck working whatever shifts we are stuck with, no one else can cover a shift when 2/3 of the partners work 30+ hours at every store. On top of: a timer for the sanitizer water, water under the bar, caraffe timer, 10 min cafe timer, and the coffee timers we also have the entire daily weekly and monthly Duty Rosters we are being told we are moving too slow. Preclose gets done if it gets done, else it falls onto the closers. We have to do more with less and less.

If Starbucks took more time to hire better people with work ethics they would be in better shape. Starbucks should have a 30 day probationary period in which the manager gives a review after with the result being we keep you or you are fired.

[JavaJoe]

my dm is a very reasonable woman. first time i met her was when i walked in for a shift and she was calling the line while making frappuccinos. she knows what its like to be behind the counter and i hope that helps in the long run.

as for lean, from what i read, its not something that the dm can dicate usually. for the most part we have to take leadership unto ourselves. just today i was thinking about how to move the syrups and blending pitchers and iced tea shakers so it wasnt such a run around.

i am a barista with almost a year and a half experience and in my store, i dont feel one bit awkward or unentitled to give my opinions. many times my sm has thanked me or helped me impliment my strategies. lean thinking is not an evil idea. the think i dont think people understand is that it is important for a barista to take leadership rather than sit there and wait to be told what to do. whats so wrong about that?

[whatwhat]

The cadance method works very well on paper... and it ends there. we have all tried many many times at my store to do it and it has failed everytime.

Either one person is stuck at the brewers all shift, or the customers get ignored, or we have to talk to them AS we are brewing coffee instead of them getting our full attention, and we definately run out of coffee too much.

I've worked for Starbucks for a few years now and every year it seems worse and worse, for us AND the customers.

yet the cadance is still part of my job so I do it.... but NO one is going to make me LIKE it!!! LOL

[Christin]

"Either one person is stuck at the brewers all shift, or the customers get ignored, or we have to talk to them AS we are brewing coffee instead of them getting our full attention, and we definately run out of coffee too much."

once again, I don't understand how this is happening to you? Cadence does not require to brew any MORE coffee than you would have been brewing before....

[Burned Bean]

lean is a successful way to train new hires (or robots). since store manager turnover has continued to rise over the last two years, seattle has found the way to create consistency in store operations/training. labor has been reduced by 4% from this same time last year. that could be anywhere from 4-10 man hours in a single day, per store. the "big giant head" realized the current method of operation was no longer sustainable. starbucks has truly become a cookie cutter operation...

[tall guy]

lean pastry case saved no time.

lean brewing works better than before and for the most part we do not run out of coffee. we have four shuttles, one each for pike, bold, decaf, and 4th to brew next in sequence. what makes it successful is brewing the correct batch size and always erroring towards brewing extra. during peak we brew full pike and bold and ask customers which they prefer - as to not run out of either.

because of this, there is more waste with lean better way but that is ok because the idea is that a customer won't have to wait for the coffee to finish brewing because there won't be a time when there is not pike, bold or decaf in it's "home" spot. it is not a perfect solution but my store has embraced it and has made it a success in terms of providing customers with their brew without them having to wait. we have actually received a lot of compliments from customers since implementing.

if it is not working at your store - i blame the store manager and/or the 30 pages of training materials that made the learning a bit more difficult to understand than it needed to be. it is actually a rather simple process.

[SBUCKS DRONE LOS ANGELES]

We pretty much mix our old (and efficient) work habits with LEAN and we've actually had some great results. What does this mean? We don't necessarily follow EVERYTHING the LEAN method instructs us to do, however, we do use some it's theory and apply it to the way we usually work. Scooping coffee and grinding it is all good, but the whole "Cadence" thing is just plan robotic. Every 8 minutes? Really, who's actually doing this? Using four urns to brew coffee? No. Does this mean we throw the whole LEAN method out the window? Of course not. In the morning (our busiest time) we actually do use cadence, but in the afternoon/eventing, we resort to using two urns only. I am going to have to agree with some of you that these LEAN methods are actually turning us into Robots. We must remember that this is a corporation we're working for and these types of outside influences are eventually going to creep in. Instead of thinking outside the box, we're staying inside and there's no way of getting out of it in sight (for the time being).

Onward.

[calirista]

our store is currently without a manager, so I am not sure what you guys are sayinga bout the entire cadence thing, but from reading your comments, it seems to be a system set so that we never run out of coffee.

first off, can someone explain to me how this works AND the reasoning behind sbux's decision for implementing it?

then, secondly, if you're connecting with customers properly, then you're going to develop a relationsihp with 80 percent of the customers (especially during the rushes.) When there's a good relationship between barista and customer, they are generally okay with me standing back a few steps and taking their order WHILE i am preparing coffee. (THis is when it is just me alone at the register) Or you can make coffee in between customers. There are several steps to making coffee: emptying the urn, rinsing the drip thing, lining it, scooping coffee, etc. WATCH YOUR COFFEE LEVEL, and work in between customers. You can still have your conversations etc etc.. and it's not like the customers are blind. they see that it is onlky you. Here and there I will apologize if it takes a second or two longer than usual.

then again, i'm not sure. i don't know what the cadence is. at my store right now, (unless it's the morning rush) we use two urns for ppr. when one sset of coffee has five minutes left (or when it's getting low) on the timer, we brew the other one. the system works. we always have ppr (cvan't say the same for bold pick and decaf) and we don't waste much.

[SBUCKS DRONE LOS ANGELES]

"If Starbucks took more time to hire better people with work ethics they would be in better shape. Starbucks should have a 30 day probationary period in which the manager gives a review after with the result being we keep you or you are fired."-Posted by Looong Time Shift

Amen. You either have it or you don't. We need efficient partners that are willing TO WORK and not complain about things.

[calirista]

^what i meant to say was:
you can empty the urn
then help customer
then rinse the brewer basket
then help another customer...

it's called multi tasking...
just make sure it doesn't get in the way of customer service. some people really are incapable of doing this. and that's okay.

[Joe]

Is that the amount of time that they spend making drinks for themselves?

[Mark Graban]

Hi - posting here as a very frequent Starbucks customer (Kona Clover is my drink of choice). I'm also a "lean guy" by profession, so I'll lay that experience and bias out there.

Lean is good - when the real Toyota management and quality philosophy is embraced by the leaders of a factory or even, yes, a hospital.

I can understand why the reaction at Starbucks might be mixed -- whether lean is good or bad for you depends on your leadership mindset, at corporate AND (probably more importantly) the store level.

I wrote a post at my blog that I invite you to check out and consider:

http://www.leanblog.org/2009/08/defense-of-lean-and-of-lean-at.html

Mark Graban
www.leanblog.org
Author "Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction"

[burned out]

I have been so happy since I left a few months ago....

the sun is brighter, colors are more beautiful.

Its like the feeling of getting over a hangover.

[Kat]

You know, after reading all the things Starbucks has been doing the past year, it's no wonder I don't enjoy going there as much as I used to. The turnover rate of employees at the one near my house is high, orders are rushed and the employees always seemed hurried and happy to get you out of the way so they can get to the next bit of business. It's just not the enjoyable experience it used to be. Consequently, friends and I are opting more frequently to meet at some of the independent coffee places, it feels less hassled and rushed, and the employees seem more relaxed and friendly. I know times are tough, and cuts and belt tightening have to be made, but the bigwigs at Starbucks are turning their stores into an experience on par with a visit to some fast food joint.

[Thought of the Day]

@Mark Graben, IMHO your analysis of "lean" doesn't take one thing into account - THE HUMAN ELEMENT!!! Maybe when a company bulids widgets they can work "lean" - But I thought $tarbucks was not only a "coffee business", I thought they were a "people" business too! #STARBUCKSFAIL

[TiredSM]

We are now in the "coffee" business serving people, and are no longer in the people business serving coffee. We are too efficient to chat with you, sorry we must now be lean and robotic. Move 'em in and move 'em out.

[tired SS]

they call us partners but we really have no say in what goes on in our stores, we could have a say if we get organized and form a union. for real there are way more baristas and shifts than there is managemen so lets use this website to get what we diverse.

we are PEOPLE, not machines!

[Will]

Ny favorite part of "LEAN" or better ways were the parts in the video that talked about "repeatable routines," and then in the next clip talking about how it won't work for every story and how you should "make it yours." Way to speak out of both sides of your mouth.

Lean is nothing more than a stupid buzzword concocted by morons with MBAs in corporate who were lucky enough to duck the last layoff axe.

Cadence is stupid, it was mandated on us with no training from above, and mass confusion all around, especially when 3 coffees are around in the morning. We ended up just grinding coffee before brewing (which I actually think is a decent idea, but not one that justifies the salary of whoever came up with it...) and use the old timer method.