Lean and Six Sigma Story at Subway
I’m going to tell you a story that illustrates how Lean Thinking and Six Sigma Thinking both play an integral roll in my everyday life … which is a blessing and a curse ;) I was teaching a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course in Atlanta. We were having a great class and everyone was engaged. I had worked up quite an appetite because I tend to be very animated and move around during class.
Lunch time came and a few of the students and I went to the local Subway to eat. We weren’t the only ones with the idea. This was an industrial area, and this Subway was a local favorite. When we arrived, there were about nine people in line. While standing in line I watched the typical dance of the two Subway sandwich artisans. One was at the register, and the other was preparing the sandwiches. I noticed that most of the patrons wanted their subs toasted, which is also my preference.
While watching the young man prepping the subs, I saw that that he put the sub in the toaster, and stood and waited the 30 seconds that it took sub to toast. He then pulled it out and continued to engineer the sandwich which took another 30 to 40 seconds. This infuriated me! We could potentially wait in line for 10 minutes. Along, with the ten minutes it took to get here, I could potentially have 30 minutes to eat and call my bride. And the worst thing was, no one seemed to notice the unneeded delay.
In my lean and six sigma class, we discuss how to reduce cycle time in a process. In most cases a customer would be more satisfied if he were to get the product or service more quickly. In my case, the Subway scenario was no different. We teach the concept of serial vs. parallel events. Serial events happen one after another … when one process stops, the next one starts.
In my teaching and consulting experience, I have found that many systems that are dominated with serial events, could look more into those events because they most could happen in parallel with another. Take for example, the young man toasting the subs. He had two serial events going on within the sandwich making process, toasting and adding the condiments. He did not add the condiments until the sandwich had been toasted.
Could this have been done in parallel? Sure! He could have staggered the “sandwich engineering” of the previous patron, while the sub of the next patron was toasting thus reducing the time to create the sub. I have since learned that this is the process that Subway uses, and what I witnessed was due to inexperience.
This experience made for a good discussion in class, so I thought I would share it with the world.
Benefits of Onsite Training:
Lunch time came and a few of the students and I went to the local Subway to eat. We weren’t the only ones with the idea. This was an industrial area, and this Subway was a local favorite. When we arrived, there were about nine people in line. While standing in line I watched the typical dance of the two Subway sandwich artisans. One was at the register, and the other was preparing the sandwiches. I noticed that most of the patrons wanted their subs toasted, which is also my preference.
While watching the young man prepping the subs, I saw that that he put the sub in the toaster, and stood and waited the 30 seconds that it took sub to toast. He then pulled it out and continued to engineer the sandwich which took another 30 to 40 seconds. This infuriated me! We could potentially wait in line for 10 minutes. Along, with the ten minutes it took to get here, I could potentially have 30 minutes to eat and call my bride. And the worst thing was, no one seemed to notice the unneeded delay.
In my lean and six sigma class, we discuss how to reduce cycle time in a process. In most cases a customer would be more satisfied if he were to get the product or service more quickly. In my case, the Subway scenario was no different. We teach the concept of serial vs. parallel events. Serial events happen one after another … when one process stops, the next one starts.
In my teaching and consulting experience, I have found that many systems that are dominated with serial events, could look more into those events because they most could happen in parallel with another. Take for example, the young man toasting the subs. He had two serial events going on within the sandwich making process, toasting and adding the condiments. He did not add the condiments until the sandwich had been toasted.
Could this have been done in parallel? Sure! He could have staggered the “sandwich engineering” of the previous patron, while the sub of the next patron was toasting thus reducing the time to create the sub. I have since learned that this is the process that Subway uses, and what I witnessed was due to inexperience.
This experience made for a good discussion in class, so I thought I would share it with the world.
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SSDSI will come to your site to train for your choice of the Lean Six Sigma Certification Levels. Onsite training is more cost effective than open enrollment training when training larger groups of team members.
Benefits of Onsite Training:
The Training is focused on Your Opportunities
SSDSI uses your opportunities in class (vs. generic examples)
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For More Information Contact: Kevin Clay, MBB at 866-922-6566 or kclay@sixsigmadsi.com
Six Sigma is all about reducing the defects to the minimum. Thus while implementing six sigma one should not really be concerned with the size of the organization.
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you, Mark. Those are great questions to ask. They could be applied to the application of not only the terminology but of the tools too. Thanks for sharing your insight.lean six sigma training
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