Bottlenecks
Take the time and invest in your business.
A bottleneck is a restriction in the flow of your business. It’s like a kink in your water hose. No matter how much you turn up the pressure the end result will still be the same and you may even blow the hose off the tap.
I’ll try to keep this real simple but the amount of information you can obtain from this one exercise is just beyond belief.
With pad and pen draw up a floor plan of your store.
- Then start a line from the first point of contact with your customer and only end the line with the order leaving the store. This line represent one order.
What’s happening in your store. In your busiest period does the store look any different?
- Now draw lines for all the orders in your busiest half hour in trade. How many orders are in the store at that time.
- Now draw lines for your goal half hour the number of customers you would love to be servicing in a half hour.
But the number of lines/orders that can enter through your store can only be your current capacity.
That requires you to take the time to find out what your current capacity really is.
Your ovens have a capacity this X pizzas per half hour you’ll only be able to do that many pies.
Your telephone system can only handle a certain number of callers then this is an issue. How long does it take to take an order over the phone?
How many delivery drives do you have?
Your coldroom/storage can only hold a certain amount of supplies.
You only prep a certain amount of toppings a day how much more would you need to process is your current equipment up to it.
This is the most valuable exercise you will do if you plan to grow your business or improve the way it operates today. When’s the best time to do it today.
There is nothing more frustrating in the pizza business then not being able to provide the same consistent levels of product and service. If you’re operating beyond the capacity of your store your business will go backwards. You’ll burn customers.
A customer will call your store for an order in your busiest half hour and your phone will be engaged or you won’t have the staff the make the pizzas, server at the counter or deliver it.
If you’re going to make a greater investment in your business how will this increase the real productive output of your store. Will a new oven really make a difference if you can’t get the orders through on the phones?
There is a real science to this style of considering operations. Planing and project for the productivity of the business. The number of pizzas you plan to make and the amount of raw product and labour you’ll to get them to your customer.
Its’ simple though. Look at your current operations track the number of pizzas you are selling iron out any existing bottlenecks and fine tune your business.
