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WORKING 2 OVENS

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wa_dave

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We will be having our second oven (MMPS360 top stack) oven installed on Wednesday.
I am curious how you guys handle orders for stacked ovens.
Initially the additional oven will only be used in conjunction with the original one for about 3 hours on Fridays and Saturdays (and hopefully more as business grows). We have two pizza makers on each night.
I am thinking of one using the lower oven and the other using the top one. This will allow them to each keep the flow going in each oven and it will also allow me to see who is making mistakes (if any), aren’t making up to scratch and also see who is lagging in speed.
Do you guys allocate an oven to each maker or just use them as orders come through?
Dave
 
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When I am running both ovens, I have one person feeding the ovens so they can stagger the pizzas in a manner that will keep the person on cut from being overwhelmed. If done right, At maximum capacity with our largest pizzas, the person cutting has 30 seconds to cut and box each pizza. I only wish I could keep that flow going for 8 hours a day 😃
 
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When we are running 2 ovens, cheese stix, wings, sandwiches etc go to the bottom oven if possible. The bottom oven is too low to see into easily without bending way over, something my employees don’t like to see me do. so we tend to load the things that do not require monitoring in the bottom. Pizzas also go in the bottom as needed, but given the choice pizza goes in the top so it is more likely to see bubbles if they form. Bubbles have not been a big problem for us for years now, but I still occasionally get one big enough to make the pizza ugly if it is not noticed.
 
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Typically if we are busy enough to warrant two ovens we will use one for orders and one for buffet pizzas. The big thing for us is making sure those who are making the pizza keep all the items for the same order in the same oven. It’s not a disaster if it doesn’t happen, but it helps cut down on errors and leaves less room for error.
 
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Got our second oven installed on Wednesday but had a couple of minor problems with the conveyor (secondhand oven) that got rectified on Friday just before opening time. Set the time at 7 minutes but the belt was flying so spent about 10 minutes adjusting the speed by sight not by the timer to the same speed as the lower oven. Then all of a sudden it decided to work by the timer OK? A few things may have got shaken up in the 5,500 km transport to us, but all is well now.
On a Friday night our wait times with one oven blew out to around 50 minute during the peak as the oven backed up and makeline people shuffled orders and made up pizzas to store them waiting for a space in the oven.
Last night we had a record sales night, far greater than any other night and our longest wait was less than 30 minutes during the busiest of peaks.
We had 2 on the make bench with one feeding the lower oven and the other the top.
We had a guy pulling the pizzas out and I was cutting and dispatching. It worked a treat.
The only downside was customers were not coming in at the 20 or 25 minute time we quoted as they were accustomed to the long wait. They even questioned the low wait times when we quoted saying “20 minutes on a Friday night?”
All in all my expectations were realised and justified the extra oven. For a number of reasons we were unable to get the other oven until now but now we have it I expect cost recovery in less than 6 months and sales to increase dramatically as we will no longer be losing sales due to long wait times.
Dave
 
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I’ll be happy to take your over-flow orders Dave! Congrats! Hope it holds up and you see nothing but “record nights” from here out!
 
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deaconvolker:
I’ll be happy to take your over-flow orders Dave! Congrats! Hope it holds up and you see nothing but “record nights” from here out!
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deaconvolker:
I’ll be happy to take your over-flow orders Dave! Congrats! Hope it holds up and you see nothing but “record nights” from here out!
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Can only but hope 🙂
 
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Our client’s experience has been that sales, during the prime evening hours, increase to meet production capacity. The assumption being that a good pizza is being sold and production is increased judiciously.

George Mills
 
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When we have both ovens going (30-40 pies per hour is where we turn on the second) we try to put the same order in the same oven on multiple pie orders but other than that we just use both ovens for everything.

Our ovens are wide belts so we can run 16" pies through side by side with room to spare. We max out at around 100 to 130 pies per hour depending on how much other stuff like wings, calzones, bread sticks etc are also running through.
 
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At the moment we are in the final series for the football season and on Friday and Saturday nights we had teams from our state playing. The games are being played interstate where they are 2 hours ahead of us so games were televised live from 5.30pm. This meant we had a rush from opening at 5pm so both ovens went on from the start.
Again tonight the time didn’t get over 30 minutes during the rush period … oh such a relief 😃
Our old oven fires up really quickly and gets to temperature in about 7 minutes at tops but the additional one is taking forever so we fire that up first and the old one as we need it.
Got to get a tech out to look at the new oven as it takes ages to get to temp and the temp gauge is showing it going up and down from low to high temps until it reaches the set temp. I think a few things shook loose in transit and maybe some dirt got into the jets and maybe the temp probe is loose (new one) or a wire is loose to the probe or the display panel. The tech will find the problem quickly.
 
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bodegahwy:
When we have both ovens going (30-40 pies per hour is where we turn on the second) we try to put the same order in the same oven on multiple pie orders but other than that we just use both ovens for everything.

Our ovens are wide belts so we can run 16" pies through side by side with room to spare. We max out at around 100 to 130 pies per hour depending on how much other stuff like wings, calzones, bread sticks etc are also running through.
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This is how we do it. We have 2 double stack lincolns 1600. On the weekend we run 2 for dine in & carry out, the other 2 for delivery. So basically my kitchen is 2 in 1. Depending on the competence of our crew, we can have as little as four cooks, or as many as six. I need to add another print setting to my POS, so I can shift pickups to the delivery side when the dining room is slammed, as it is now, we just walk the tickets over.
George Mills is spot on, as always. When we first went to 4 ovens, we had extra capacity. Now, the peak nights, it’s all we can do to keep up. Problem is, the peak nights aren’t as frequent as I would like. 😉 Our ovens are 17 years old, I’ve watched techs fix our ovens enough that now I can do it myself. When I order a replacement part, I try to order 2 that way we always have a back up. Costs a little more- but we never lose capacity.
 
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Our old oven fires up really quickly and gets to temperature in about 7 minutes at tops but the additional one is taking forever so we fire that up first and the old one as we need it.
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Dave, when I had our new Edge ovens installed, the techs noticed that we didn’t have enough gas pressure. The gas company techs came out and installed increased capacity gauges and lines. Problem solved. This might be part of the problem.
 
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The gas pressure was measured prior to installation and we could run another 2 ovens and still have spare capacity. Once it fires up it is good, just takes a little time. The tech will recheck everything but it looks as though it may be semi-blocked jets.
Still once it’s up and running it is a breeze getting orders through quickly.
Dave
 
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“When I order a replacement part, I try to order 2 that way we always have a back up. Costs a little more- but we never lose capacity.”

Yup, we do that too. Used to do it with heating elements for our electric lincolns at our 2nd location for the 10 years we had it. We also do it with printers and touch screens. We have a spare brand new label blaster and receipt printer in the boxes. I buy touch screens on ebay and get a deal when I buy 2-3 at a time.
 
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