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

[Mark Graban]

@thought of the day - Lean *is* about people. That's all it is about. I tried getting that across in my blog post... it's about people solving problems and making things better for customers and for their workplace.

Not a FAIL. Maybe my blog post was a FAIL if I didn't get the people element across.

If I were running Starbucks Lean would be a path toward happier partners which leads to happier customers. Not to sound like a Pollyana, but that's the goal.

Lots of people are stating what "Lean is" or "Lean says" based on a lot of conjecture... or that's the way it's coming across from your Starbucks leadership.

[Mark Graban]

@Will:

You say:

"Cadence is stupid, it was mandated on us with no training from above, and mass confusion all around,"

This is bad. As I speculated in my blog post, there are two reasons people don't like a new system:

1) it doesn't work
2) it wasn't communicated well

If this was "mandated" and there was "no training" then what's going on at Starbucks isn't very lean.

[Mark Graban]

Ok rather than me just selling Lean... can I get an answer to the question I posed in my blog post:

In the store I frequent in Boston (which does not have Lean as far as I can tell):

- why do the partners making and serving drinks slam drinks on the counter and refuse eye contact with customers mostly?

What's going on that makes people seem so miserable? And "lean" is possibly going to make things worse?

Seems like nowhere to go but up.

I have my guesses of why they're unhappy, based on general human nature in other workplaces.

[SOH]

Mark Graban,

Lean isn’t necessarily bad. Starbucks upper management is (and has been for 5+ years) the real problem. Upper management is out of touch with the stores-customers and partners. They implement things quickly without thinking things through and don’t look at the big picture. They have lied to partners time and time again creating mistrust throughout the infrastructure. There is still too many changes happening all at once which creates a constant atmosphere of confusion with virtually no communication to partners whatsoever. They spend money on stupid things and cut cost on essentials. We can’t keep the stores clean, connect with customers, keep product made and stocked, and feel accomplished in our jobs because they don’t give us the time or support. In short they expect more than is humanly possible and hold all of us accountable for not being able to keep up.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Starbucks is being ruined by the top people not the bottom partners. It’s not just a coincidence that stores appear to be dirtier, less friendly, and more stressed. It’s also not a coincidence that drink quality is down.

The best option would be to get rid of the real problems-top management. That would be my definition of a truly “Lean” Starbucks.

[Mark Graban]

SOH - thanks for some explanation. It's hard, in any setting, to truly implement lean if there is no trust. It's hard to win trust back.

I'm looking for the root cause behind why partners are stressed and unfriendly. It's likely not "their fault" as individuals, but the result of the system in which they work and the result of the way they are treated.

I'm empathetic if things are bad.

[Bdan]

Solutions that are imposed from corporate are still imposed solutions, even if they happen to have been born in a store. The solutions that work in 1 or 2 or 25 lean stores won't work in every store because of the nature of store design and the nature of people.

But it's more good publicity, and provides Mr. Schultz and company with another story of "look how they're transforming SBUX." It's NOT about the customer or partner...it's about trying to look smart and cut, cut, cut.

[Thought of the Day]

@Mark Graben, First of all let be me clear I am a very long time customer.

You want to know why $tarbucks EMPLOYEES are unhappy? C'mon we all know the ol' saying: "SHI* Rolls Down Hill".

And as far as YOUR Kool-Aide is concerned - There is absolutely no room for "lean" in a "people business". You wanna put a bag of coffee or a spoon 3 inches from somebodies work area - fine. But PEOPLE are NOT predictable like that. $tarbucks WAS a "people" business -What's next... timers at the drive through like Jack-in-the-Box?

With number crunchers like yourself around..$tarbucks is doomed for failure..At least as the finest purveyors of fine coffee and handcrafted drinks...

So $tarbucks saved money... the shareholders are happy...Whooppee! BUT.. the question we should be asking is WHY SAME STORE SALES ARE DOWN....? "LEAN?"

[Mark Graban]

@ Thought of the Day -

You make so many assumptions about me, I'll just back away from the discussion now. I'm hardly a "number cruncher." You're not hearing me when I say lean is all about people. If you study Toyota for five minutes, you learn that is the case. Open your mind, just a bit, please, instead of jumping to conclusions.

I could assume you have five tattoos and weird ear piercings, but that's just an assumption too (and probably wrong).

Lean works in healthcare -- look near by at Seattle Children's and Virginia Mason Medical Center. Patient care is better -- quality, safety, and cost.

Healthcare is the ultimate people business.

The only time there's "not room for it" is if you don't let it in.

Anyone who wants to interact with me can visit www.leanblog.org.

Good luck to you all - I really want Starbucks to succeed for this, the customers and the employees. Oh, by the way, the company will do better as well. Some of you might resent that, but the alternative is to go start your own business.

Good luck,
Mark

[Mark Graban]

Last comment - from the book "The Best Practice" about Virginia Mason Medical Center learning about Toyota and Lean:

"Some doctors feared a kind of robotization of their profession, but Kaplan had seen in Japan that, far from treating employees as robots, the Toyota Production System provided each worker with immense power. The system was based on the idea of continuous incremental improvement. Under TPS, there were no silver bullets, no huge sweeping solutions. Rather, there were dozens, and then hundreds, and then thousands, and tens of thousands of small improvements day after day after day-continuously-that improved quality. It was not up to management alone to foster ideas for improvement, nor was it the exclusive province of a quality department. It was the job of every worker; and, at Toyota, workers took this very seriously so seriously that employees at Toyota came up with hundreds of thousands of improvement ideas each year-and the majority were adopted."

What sounds bad about that workplace?

Lean is NOT about turning you into robots. If you're not helping improve the process every day, you are already a robot. Lean is a way out of that. Give it a chance.

[sarahsmoothie]

My store had a system that was very similar to the new 'cadence', only so much less stressful.

We rotated 4 urns through two brewing stations with hold times of approx 30 minutes on each. Two pike urns would rotate with each other on one brewing station, and the decaf and bold on the other. Each urn had its own timer and we would adjust the system as needed.

We ran out of coffee occasionally but not very often.

Now we're stuck with the dreadful 8-minute cadence system and it's driving everybody crady. We DO run out of coffee, timers beep incessantly - partners shut them off to stop the noise. The two main urns have been moved to the other end of the store (with no lids nearby) and partners often hustle down the aisle with full cups of coffee and no lids. It's truly awful.

And did I mention that we still run out of coffee, at least as often as we did before?

So many things suck about this job these days...

[Thought of the Day]

@Mark Graben,

Your example of Toyota: That is a manufacturing Business compared to $tarbucks..apples to oranges.

Starbucks is/was not just selling coffee...they are/were selling vibe...It's the vibe that was selling. People can literally get "coffee anywhere".

Now explain to me how "vibe" can become "lean".

And please don't tell me it's because baristas will have MORE TIME for interaction. IMHO, Not True... As soon as $tarbucks gets on board with "lean" they will definitely lay-off more partners. I can guarantee you that. Oh wait a minute there are usually only two barista's now during any one shift. Can't get anymore lean than that! Can Ya!

[Thought of the Day]

I don't know who is better at brainwashing... Lean Proponents or $tarbucks?

[Mark Graban]

@Thought of the day - did you see the comment about Lean in hospitals? You want to talk apples and oranges...

Quit fixating on the "factory" part. Lean is about factories. It's a management system and philosophy for continuous improvement of any organization, even a coffee house.

If Starbucks is only intent on laying off baristas, then they aren't thinking "lean."

If that happens, I'll eat my words of support for Starbucks. But that doesn't change my views of Lean.

[white_knight]

these are all signs

we should just form a union..period.

[Thought of the Day]

I'll tell you what Mark, IF the driving force behind $tarbucks adopting "lean practices" are the result of $tarbucks wanting to serve the customer better and provide a better work atmosphere for the barista, I'll eat my words. But clearly this is a company in financial trouble. Bottom Line. "Lean" to $tarbucks is NOT about the customer; not about the barista, in fact everyday it's less about the customer, less about the front line people and more about the numbers. This move is to "up" the numbers bottom line. IMHO

Gotta keep the shareholders happy!

[me]

"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"

Um, not. Before you could brew on both sides. You could brew two coffees at once, and those of us managers who had a brain had extra urns and docks to support brewing before coffees ran out/expired.

You may have had 20 minutes between brewing the old way, which gave you time to slide the lobby, do tasks, talk to customers, etc. Every 8 minutes you ahve to stop to rebrew, which takes 1-2 minutes to get everything switched around, ground, etc. So its more like every 6 minutes you are occupied.

Numbers don't speak situations. You obviously also don't work in a store to say something like that.

[me]

Unless you have fresh delievery, if it takes more than 5 minutes to set your pastry case (even BEFORE lean thinking) something is wrong.

We have ours all set up at close. The opener just needs to take off the plastic wrap and boom done. Tags and everything are already set up.

I have seen stores that plate everything in the morning, label it, tag it, etc. My thing with lean is that again, if you have half a brain, you'd have been doing these things all along. Coffee cadence would never have come our way if people had been smarter about their systems.

The coming cash management lean is also rediculous to me. We already do everything in it.

My feelings are that we probably have a lot of the wrong people managing the stores, or people who just don't care. Then again, we also don't get any time to do anything managerial anymore either.... sigh. But really... "i never realized having my lids at the opposite end of the counter from the cups took longer... oh my." "You mean keeping the coffee filters at the brew station will speed brewing time? I never thought of that before!"

I mean really!? And now we have seattle deciding for us. Thanks people!

[Will]

@me

Then its not really taking 5 minutes. You're spending all the extra time at night. Not every store is fortunate to have a bunch of extra time at night to set up their pastry case.

And we have fresh delivery in my area, as do many, many, many others.

[.]

Honestly, the 8 minute cadence works amazingly well at my store. That said, I followed the training material exactly how it was laid out and worked extensively to train my team and communicate only the necessary information. I really think that if it is not working at your store, it comes back on the sm (either lack of effort or not understanding the system, themselves). Even when visiting my district's "seed store" I witnessed a completely backwards implementation of coffee cadence with the baristas moving all 4 urns every 8 minutes.

I do think this shows where upper management is out of touch. Why didn't the DM notice this before brining his whole district to observe the process??? Something else along those lines that caught my eye this week was the 'Retail Components' section in the promo workbook. It stated that the recent fixture survey 'revealed' that many stores did not have enough retail fixtures to duplicate what was shown in the siren's eye. Seriously??? Do the people that come up with the siren's eye never actually GO to a Starbucks??? How, during the years that this has been the case, did they not wander into a Starbucks and notice..."Hey, this stores retail doesn't match up to the Siren's Eye I made." It really took that long to figure it out and communicate the best possible solution?

[Will]

Was all the time, effort, and confusion really worth it just so you can turn your back on the customer at the register even more?

Cadence is worthless.

[spence]

Re: Cadence
Do you have hanging tags attached to the brewer machine? If you do, do you have them labeled at the top (in order of cadence) and labeled below the tag for what is to be brewed next?
For rinsing the machine: Try filling a caramel sauce container and just squeezing a little in at the hole on top of the urns.
AM: Grind enough for your busy time then you just have to scoop.
If you have to brew something before cadence, no sweat. Just do it. Let the decaf sit for a few extra minutes. You probably wont need it anyway.
Keep your cubes of beans near the grinder and I'm guilty of prepping a coffee filter of each type of coffee so I can just grab it when needed.
It really can be done. After 2 or 3 shifts, you'll have the hang of it. Really.

[to tired to continue I throw in the towel(if you get any to wrk with)]

@Christin @whatwhat my store gets two on the floor all day except for one hour in the morning and 15min 2X daily for change over. Gone are the days of B1, B2, FL, POS1, POS2. now it is just like TiredSm said:"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. When the holidays come back so will the -3%VTI but i bet with "LEAN" thinking a -5% would be better.

has anyone noticed that along with the new towel rules(no spills please) that the thermostats no longer are set at a comfortable 72 degrees but rather are 76 now? It's OK the customer's can sweat a little it's good for them, right?

How are all the SM's enjoying the new laptops, working well for them i hope. So much more you can get done when mobile.

So with the new Blue/Cross insurance how many of us have to change to a new "stranger" for their personal doctor?

Melody~ as usual you have put the perfect perspective from our customers own eyes-" 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." BRAVO!

And so it has come to this~ sad *shaking head*

Since last year's call on the 2nd of December to take away the tool of labor to serve our customers, I am tired. Two short vacations(since longer ones were taken away too) has not help refresh going to work everyday knowing that short staffing, robotic mathematical formulas to foresee the future as well as how to brew coffee while ignoring the customer for one full minute(time it takes to do full cadence rotation, scoop, grind and brew) , lack of support at SSC(they were laid off) the up in the air situation with maintenance(which means nothing gets fixed until someone is hurt) has lead me to go find another position elsewhere. I don't feel sorry for making this choice because this company's S.O.P.(standard operating procedure) has dropped far below the standards that my integrity will allow me to continue with this employer.

Post Script: Stock is $1.50 from being $20 again so the new Pepsi deal should glide on through the S.E.C. without any issue at all. Good times ahead.

[wish i were a barista again but who can afford that?]

@Mark Graban~ having not read your book on "LEAN" thinking i have to say from what I hear from you on this site is that the system works. I will take your word on that as a gentleman. Just have to say that after 25 years in the food service industry that what you write about as "LEAN" we simply called working smart not hard. Pretty basic I know but it always seemed to work well. Starbucks, in it's current financial situation chooses to take that one step further by making employees work smart and hard. Every second of your day is mapped and calculated so no motion is wasted including the connection with customers although I do make eye contact with everyone I hand a drink off to if only for a half second due to the fact that i have 10+ more drinks to make behind that one. Your idea works, Howard just wants more money out of the turnip. Not your fault or your systems'. It is not intended to fill a lot of little holes in a sinking ship.

[Tom Robinson]

So who here drives a Honda, Toyota, or Nissan? And how many of you switched to those cars from American ones? They were all built with lean methods and principles, developed slowly and thoroughly by the *employees* of Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. Actually, Starbucks already has two famous lean practices visible to the customer: 1) repeating the order back, which "Japanese lean" would call self-inspection, and 2) the ten-second rule. I think you're fighting this much too quickly. The point, believe me, is to enlist Starbucks partners in finding lean solutions. This is being applied all over the place in healthcare, at Harley-Davidson, at Boeing. But "coffee is different." Sorry, it's not; it's how to apply lean methods to the coffee experience, and partners will figure that out. Or perhaps you'd like McDonald's or Tully's or Peet's to get into this instead?? Full disclosure: I live in Seattle, and have a Starbucks card, and know several early partners.

Just to clarify, Lean was not concocted by moron MBAs. Indeed, Lean advocates have fought a lot of moron MBAs over the years to introduce this people-centered approach to American organizations. Keep your objections clear and insist on management visiting, listening, and learning from your in-the-workplace, with-the-customer experience.

[Melody]

@TomRobinson - There is NOTHING inherently wrong with lean, and in fact it at least sounds like a great idea. One difference between car manufacturing and Starbucks is that no Honda employee is trying to "connect" and "nurture the soul" of an automatic transmission.

Lean is simply only a part - a small fraction- of the equation of the Starbucks experience when you walk in the door. If the goal of lean is to make it so that baristas can race to the next beverage ever faster, with even less time to connect to the customer, or learn about coffee, then the consequence the famous "Starbucks Experience" has been eroded. That's an upper management problem.

Haste makes waste. People are not a tire or a clutch that you throw on to a car and move on to the next.

No wonder why baristas so rarely take a step back and say, "Have you heard about our (Red) coffee? It's a blend of African beans, and here's where some of the money goes ... We're sampling (Red) at the moment."

Very small indy houses don't have much lean going on, yet they stay in business. Zoka's in Seattle has been thriving for about a decade, and the baristas have time to breath instead playing a race the clock game with Mr. PotatoHead. Heck, 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea operates at a slower pace too.

[smile]

If they want us to be "lean", then why do they take away such wonderful time saves like the dipper well?

[christin]

"Numbers don't speak situations. You obviously also don't work in a store to say something like that."

Actually I do work IN store. I have worked in 7 VERY different stores. We do Cadence at my store now and my previous store. It works like a dream.

When we are down to two or so people on the floor, we are only brewing Pike and MAYBE Decaf.

It's not ALWAYs an 8 minute cadence. I can also be a 12 or 24 minute cadence.

I swear some of you are against LEAN just to be against corporate. It's just an US vs THEM mentality on this board and it's rediculous. "upper management" this "upper management" that. Get over youselves.

Upper Management is NOT out of touch . They are doing what they can with the resources they have. Which by the words of the partners on this board their current resources include a bunch of WHINY good for nothing don't want to push for more entitled partners.

[Christin]

also, I might add...yes before you were breweing from 2 brewers and you in "theory" had 20 minutes between batches to do other tasks. But, I'm sorry, that was not the case most of the time. The old way of brewing coffee did not result in brewing every 20 mintues. That is rediculous. There were 3 different kinds of coffee. You were probably brewing something like every 10 minutes. Not to mention Baristas were CONSTANTLY telling customers they had to wait for decaf or bold to brew.

[Just a coffee please]

" trying to "connect" and "nurture the soul" of an automatic transmission."

Jesus Christ, just give me a coffee with a smile, shit. Nurturing the soul? WTF???

[Melody]

@just a coffee please - I was trying to quote the mission statement but writing too fast & distracted. Here's the quote from Starbucks' OWN mission statement:

"To inspire and nurture the human spirit— one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time"

http://www.starbucks.com/mission/

[Aces of Eight]

Lean has worked for my stores pastry case since way before lean was ever implemented. Before anyone else was doing it we (we get fresh pastry delivery) were setting up the trays for the pastries along with the tags the night before, as well as leaving, covered, any leftover pastries that were part of the am setup and still good the next day, in their place in the case all ready to go.

This does not take long and since our evenings were never incredibly busy we had plenty of time to do it. Then the opener simply comes in in the morning, and, working from the front (which really is way quicker) puts the pastries in the case. It's very quick and easy for all involved, especially since we get just a half hour to open. I would say it never really takes more than 20 minutes for someone to set up the case in the morning at our store.

[shoot me now please]

@ christin i only have two on the floor all day, one on bar one on POS, so for one full minute (I timed the rotation and the scoop, grind, brew) the customers stand there watching the employee do this dance. the other partner can only do so much by themselves (spins, change carafes, call the line, make hot and cold beverages while doing fifty transactions a half hour and make sure you write every name on the cup. i bet you don't have the new custom fraps yet but what used to take 4 steps to make, ie. a grande caramel to get it into the blender now it takes 12 steps. so how is all this making it better?

[Thought of the Day]

Mr. Robinson.... Just for FULL DISCLOSURE is your web-site called:
www.leanproject.com and is your twitter account: tomlean ?

Just Curious if you are the same person as the man that has that web-site and twitter account.
That way I can fully appreciate your above comment!

[me]

@ will
Fresh markets are a different beast, but in most fresh markets it was taking over an hour. I've worked placed before starbucks where we could bake the stuff and have it out in an hour.

As far as extra time at night... are you kidding? We run with 2 people most of the day. We plate the pastries on trays and pu them back in the freezer during slow times of the day. It takes all of 5 minutes extra time to plate your AM pastries vs. just pulling them.

The closer has to close the pasty case regardless. All they have to do is pull the trays from the freezer and drop them in the holes in the pastry case.

If you want to add in prep time during the day for it, 5 extra minutes of prep, 5 minutes in the morning. But again, if you manage your food business well, you'd be prepping pastry backups in down times all day anyway.

[me]

back @ will

A thought on fresh markets. You know whats coming in. Couldn't your closer have empty trays set out and tagged?

If you have the kind of pasty case where the front lifts up, they'd just have to grab some glvoes and toss them in. Would take just a few minutes in the Am, and only a few minutes in the am.

[me]

@shoot me now please

If you are doing 50 transactions/half hour and only have 2 people on the floor something is wrong.

Even with labor cuts you'd be earning almost 4 partners an hour. I do less than that and have 3 during my peak time.

What does your VTI come out for a week?

[me]

@ Christian

I think you are half right, and the side you argue against is half right.

I think there is value in the concepts of LEAN, but it doesn't translate well our Starbucks in full.

Upper management... gads, with all the inside info I have, as a Stockholder, I'd push to oust them all, even Howard Schultz sheerly on business decisions and the direction they've taken the company.

Starbucks began its long dark fall years ago in the Jim Donald Era. While Jim took teh company in a direction away from its roots and values, he did so lightly and with initiatives that didn't fit our purpose (record labels, merchandise that made the stores looks like junk bazzars, less focus on coffee and coffee culture, lack of one ones, development), the current regime cut all that stuff, but kept cutting and cutting into the culture.

I truly feel that when we cut back partner development, time for managers to be, well, managerial, business development days with the dms, coffee masters, seminars, in store events, etc. we lost our way.

Want clean stores? Give up some labor.
Want excited baristas? Let's invest time in them, and make their jobs FUN again. Working for Starbucks isn't really fun anymore, and it used to be fun. I used to look forward to coming to work. I can't remember that last time that happened. We were different...

Oh, and if work is fun, it truly touches the environment. You used to walk into a starbucks and feel the magic. Customers don't feel that anymore. I was so excited when howard came back, and by his leaked memo. I thought it was going to be the best thing ever, but its been a total let down.

We spend millions on espresso excellence, and now... well, we still don't resteam the milk. Everything else jsut about went out the window.

And the decrease in customer traffic: Pike's Place. (Sorry, but I've seen a HUGE decrease in repeat trips because of it, and I know I'm not alone.)
And sure we have bold for the morning, but I'm sorry, the spoodled proportions don't taste right. And we brew a lesser variety.

[Nnerdly]

I see a lot of arguing over cadence. Some say brewing every eight minutes is more work. Some say we were brewing every eight minutes on average so what's the big deal?

I think the big deal is, at least during peak coffee time, that we used to be able to plan and prep the next batches of coffee along with grabbing that pastry, stocking more lids, giving directions to places for customers, grinding, warming, filling, shaking, adding ice, explaining how to use wi-fi, and all the other things that a floater needs to do to keep three register partners planted. We could fit it in at the most convenient time.

Now, when that timer goes off, every else must take a back seat, while we brew, or the cadence gets thrown off and batches of coffee expire.

I'm not saying the old way was better, I'm just saying the flexibility was nice and the times we run out of a coffee are about the same.

That being said, cadence is great for later in the day when we aren't/weren't as focused on coffee levels and the thirty minute timer. We never run all three coffees until five pm and never run out of any of them.

After five pm we have cone brewing. Any other test stores out there?

Any thoughts on lean cash handling?

[Nnerdly]

My store very rarely has only two people working. Yes it is frustrating to do the cadence when you are short handed with only two, but it's fine when you have two partners and you are only earning two partners. There is plenty of time between customers at those times to do the cadence.

[Will]

LOL @ Christin, "Upper management is not out of touch."

I barely even want to respond to that. Have you ever even BEEN in a starbucks?

Making people jump through stupid hoops just to get on the internet to check their email (wouldn't it just make EVERYONES life easier to open up the wifi? I hate having to constantly explain the process to customers while I'm busy), cutting labor arbitrarily and unnecessarily, having DMs do virtually nothing but hassle store level employees and bug us to juke promo stats, constantly reversal of policies, and now these stupid, dysfunctional "Lean" practices...

And that's just in the last 6 months to a year.

That's not whining, that's facts. I can keep going if you're like.

[ASM = LAZY]

Our ASM is often the front float. The ASM is always out of place. The ASM doesn't support DT or front reg. The SM, DM and ASM are always talking about how to increase line speed. How about doing your job? Every ASM I've worked with will do anything to not work on the floor. If customer count is so important then double ring sometimes. Get the warming going for lobby and DT. Call or write cups when there's a line.

Am I the only one who has had nothing but lazy good for nothing ASM?

[AliCat]

Starbucks is living in a dream world. The employees are burnt out and even though I no longer work for the company, I can see it all over their faces when I walk into a store. It's sad - then I come home and I look at the plaque I have from over two years ago when my first store closed - it's a "BRAVO - recognizing initiative, resourcefulness, and action in service, sales, and savings" plaque for our Q1 2007 Holiday Incentive. That at least makes me feel lucky that I worked for Starbucks when it was still a place where people were occasionally praised, encouraged, and valued... and that was the beginning of the end. Sad.

[looong time shift]

I think the keywords here are trust and inspiration. Starbucks used to have both in abundance, now it has to work to get those back. Until then, every change seems like more desperation to turn things around to "how they used to be." Every move feels a little lateral and not enough forward. I get the idea of Lean and efficiency increases are always good. Maybe it was communicated as less of a soft shift in policy and more of a "do this or else..."Its also hard when I know that these policy changes cost so much that we pay in labor, people, and repairs. Our store cant even order cleaning supplies before asking around to transfer them from others that have extra. So we have the added layer of a manager having to call around to other managers or emailing the DM who asks other SM's. I get it, you want to keep overhead lower, but dont expect the stores to stay clean when we know we are going to have a hard time finding cleaning supplies. Its the same with mops, we have 4 for the whole week. Hopefully we dont have any spills out of the ordinary. Its an exptension of labor and other cuts. Earn back the trust and inspiration.

[Lean...cause Upper Mgmt needs a bonus!]

I fear I have to agree with the comments that LEAN seems to be designed to save money and free up time (which will allow more labor cutbacks, thus saving MORE money...)

It's a great idea if you're going to make the work-day "easier" and more efficient, but I fear it's being done just so they can squeeze the nickle till the buffalo shits.

Lean Cash Management? Are you kidding me? How much more "streamlined" can I be? I can count a safe in/out in less time than it takes for the time-lock to go off (2 mins!). A deposit takes 15 mins including the trip to the bank. We only have to get change twice a week, so add an extra 10 minutes on twice a week while the bank double-checks our change count. Where is there time to trim off of that? Want to make it faster, have someone bring me change and pick up my deposit. I reckon aside from that I can't make counting cash go any quicker.

Next: Lean-Customers. "Training your customer to take less time ordering"?

[CamSpi]

Nothin's wrong with a little love handles. With lean you cut out the delicous fat. (Totally sounding like BSR in this post! LOL)

[ChaseW]

This company is so lost it's funny. No doubt some VP in Seattle gave himself a BIG FAT raise for this. One week they want more 'service' (ie labor) then one week they streamline then when they do that its too automated and go back to more 'service'. Flip flop flip flop. How long before we see the Pepsi machines in the store???

[TNT]

Personally, Pepsico should buy Starbucks and get rid of all top management. They know more about running a fast food business than Howard & Company. They might be able to bring the customers back and rebuild the trust of the long suffering partners (at least the ones that are left).

[me myself and I]

I like the idea of lean customers. If you don't order it the proper starbucks way or your drink checks off more than three of our boxes on the cup, we just ignore you and call out: "Next please!"
That would make drink ordering so much faster and more efficient.

:-)

[Drinkspiritanddie]

I don't understand why you people keep complaining about brewing coffee every 8 minutes. You're probably the type of partner that asks "what should I do now?" or that ONLY wipes off tables when doing a lobby slide. .. OR that is busy getting ice when the bin is half full but there are no pars being made, no milk in the fridge or cups that need stocking.

Stop being lazy. If you go out of cadance, NO BIG DEAL. you will eventually fall back in. But you're too busy complaining and crying about it. SHUT UP and work. Do what you get paid to do. Ugh.

[Tom Robinson]

@ shoot me now please Yes that's me. And no Mr, thanks!