Starbucks Waiting Time and Lean Operations (2010)
shmula.com
shmula.com
IMO this isn’t a good conclusion to reach and isn’t lean - sure bringing down combinations makes things more efficient but it impacts the customer offer.
The article takes it for granted that having thousands of combinations is inherently unmanageable - but look at where lean came from - the auto industry where each car has thousands of combinations and is much more complex than adding a pump of vanilla to a hot drink.
A generic coffee isn’t the product Starbucks is selling - they are selling the exact coffee you want, made perfectly for you.
Is that what Starbucks is selling where you live? Cause here (Europe) it definitely isn't. They sell the fast food experience for drinks, with slightly more hipster feel. (By the way I'm not saying this to be negative, i quite like what they sell, both in product and atmosphere)
Anyway, reducing product combinations is very common in the hospitality industry. A menu that is too bloated leads to customers being overwhelmed. I've stopped browsing my steam games list because I bought a few bundles a long time ago and now it's unmanageable...
How selection affects sales is a point that shouldn’t be addressed by lean though. It might be that coffee has the paradox of choice, but IMO this is pretty unlikely (as there are standard drinks with the option to customise), but regardless, my broader point is that lean shouldn’t be defining the products you are selling - you should start with what customers want and work back from there.
I’m in the U.K. but hot drink customisation is certainly a consumer trend, for instance Cafe Nero’s new slogan is “Your Drink, Your Way”.
Taking a manufacturing perspective the less choice you offer consumers the cheaper production would be, so the same logic could be used to argue the customer offer down to a single drink. This is why lean tells us absolutely nothing about what the customer offer should be.
Well, yes, it is unmanageable FOR A BEVERAGE. It's ridiculous what some people are asking for (even when you ignore the deliberately farcical tik-tok complicated order fad).
I think there's a point at which it becomes wise to say "no" to the customer. Not just because fulfilling the order becomes intractable, but ALSO because it's a matter of good taste and maintaining a classy image (admittedly that ship has long ago sailed away for Starbucks).
I don’t think any of us in this thread understand what their customers want more than Starbucks do…
Besides even the classiest coffee bars will offer an eye watering number of permutations. Most offer 3 options of bean (dark, light, decaf), 7 drink types (Americano, espresso, latte, cappuccino, flat white, macchiato, filter), 2 sizes for each, skim/full/oat/coconut/soy milk choices, 5 syrups, own cup/mug/takeout, option to double-shot, so that already gets you well above 6,000 combinations. Want to offer those as iced drinks in the summer? Up to 12k options.
So what do we want to do? Not offer syrups? No cold drinks in the summer? No coconut milk (which is an upsell anyway)?
All these choices have revenue implications.
TBH, whatever Stabuck's is doing is perfectly fine. They're not killing-off the super-cool coffee shops who employ skilled baristas, they're making them more desirable and rarified.
You can also either look at the options as pure complexity or as sales opportunities. Sure adding a choice between two beans doubles the permutations, but it also provides an opportunity to add $0.30 on a portion of sales. Sure you could only offer oat milk as a non dairy alternative, but some people prefer coconut and if you give it to them for a $0.50 charge that’s money in the bank for you along with a customer that will come back. Teens going to the coffee shop with their mates don’t like the bitter taste of coffee? Great, take even more money from them by charging an extra buck for some pumpkin spice syrup and a sprinkle of powder that costs you a few cents, plus because it tastes like candy you might manage to get someone into drinking coffee that otherwise wouldn’t.
This isn’t annoying complexity to Starbucks corporate - these are opportunities to appeal to a broader audience while taking more cash at a higher margin.
In any case, I visit Starbucks often and the only thing I ever order is black coffee; it is exceedingly rare for the line to be so long that I leave without ordering.
Something confusing is happening here. If we have 240 customers in 10 hours, then surely λ = [240 / 10] = [24 customers/hr]. Possibly the article means "could get through".