It all started in 1940 when the brothers Dick Y Mac McDonald decided to open in San Esteban (California - USA) a small roadside auto-restaurant specialized in menus consisting of hamburgers, french fries and cola, all in a "Take Away" format.
These McDonald brothers saw that their hamburger business was competitive, but it was not successful enough to outperform the competition, so they were tasked with analyzing the statistical data of their sales and measuring the times it took their staff to complete. tasks to get your job done.
Implementation of continuous process improvement
In the beginning they had focused on offering products that satisfied the palates of their customers, but now it was about delivering the order in the shortest possible time to have a competitive advantage that would allow them to overcome the competition. Additionally, as a benefit of this process optimization, it was intended to reduce operating costs.
This led them to design kitchen equipment to prepare several hamburgers at the same time, as well as potatoes and milkshakes. This is because previously one hamburger was prepared at a time.
As part of the continuous improvement of processes, they drew on a tennis court how the new distribution of the kitchen equipment would be and asked their employees to simulate preparing hamburgers, potatoes and drinks, all this in order to organize the furniture and staff so that they can carry out their work as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Once they had their entire structured plan of how to carry out continuous improvement and optimize their processes, they set about closing their restaurant for 1 week to implement the continuous improvement changes that had been proposed.
Results of continuous improvement
As a result, they reduced the delivery time of orders from 30 minutes to 30 seconds and as a consequence they gained more customers, since the consumer preferred to go with them and enjoy a hamburger immediately after paying for it and not have to go with the competition to wait 30 minutes to have their food delivered.
Another great result was the reduction of operating costs since they eliminated the wait staff, as well as a part of the staff to prepare the hamburgers, since, with the new equipment designed to prepare more hamburgers at the same time, fewer personnel were required. In the same way, operating costs were reduced by eliminating conventional tableware and implementing disposable wraps and cups since personnel were eliminated to wash the dishes and losses due to theft of dishes were avoided.
The continuous improvement of processes and innovation has been a constant in the company that has allowed it to be the most important and well-known hamburger chain ("fast food") in the world.
After all this success came another great change with Ray Krock and the franchise revolution that allowed McDonald's to have today more than 36,000 establishments spread over 119 countries around the planet, feeding every day nearby of 70 million people, which represents 1% of the world population. In fact, it is estimated that every second 75 hamburgers of McDonald's around the world.
The company employs 400,000 people throughout all the countries in which it has a presence, and in 2016 it had a turnover of close to 25,000 million dollars, obtaining a profit of 4,700 million dollars (4,400 million euros).
Conclusions
If you want to be successful in your business or if you are in charge of an area or department of the company in which you work, you should start by implementing continuous improvement, setting objectives for reducing time and operating costs, as well as improving satisfaction. the client's.
You can rely on current tools such as our mobile application for continuous improvement, which will allow you to obtain statistics of your processes and will give you the guideline to reduce operating costs and increase customer satisfaction.. For more information, click here.
Remember that all continuous improvement leads to innovation and reduction of operating costs, which will finally give you the competitive advantage to be successful in your business or your professional career.
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Article written by:
Felipe Armenta Garcia
Owner of Go-Host with more than 25 years of professional experience in the field of Information Technology.
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