Question

Managing Service, Information and Control

Going Lean at Starbucks

It started off as a day basically like any other. You went into the Starbucks that you manage, helped the employees open the store, and thought about making a dent in the mountain of paperwork left over from the previous week. But then, you got an unexpected visit from a team at the corporate office. They started talking about the need to lower labor costs, improve efficiency, and increase productivity. When you asked them how they planned on doing all that, their response was “lean production.”

They informed you that lean production is a management philosophy derived from Toyota that is focused on reducing waste. Whether it’s wasted motion, wasted time, or wasted parts, the goal of lean production is to eliminate waste so that all the members of an organization can do their work efficiently. The executives then show you all the “waste” that’s in your stores right now—baristas bending over to scoop coffee from a counter below, others waiting for coffee to fully drain before starting a new pot, one worker carrying trays of pastries from storage to the display case, another spending ten seconds per drink to read the milk label. They even show you a map showing the winding trail that a barista takes in making a single drink. It looks like a big pile of spaghetti, you think to yourself.

With lean production, the executives explain, you can reduce the amount of motion that employees spend making drinks, and the amount of time they spend reaching for stuff, reading labels, or moving from here to there. This will make your store more efficient and productive, so that the same number of employees can serve more customers.

You’re intrigued by all of this, as nothing would please your supervisors more than increased revenue and lower costs. But you’re also worried about how your employees will react. Many of them came to work at Starbucks because it wasn’t like other fast-food chains that only focus on speed, speed, and speed. How will they feel once you tell them that they’ll have to change the way they work to become faster? What if they feel like you just want them to be coffee-making robots, leaving them no time to interact with customers or experiment with new drinks? Consider these issues with the questions below.

The Problem with Cups

Starbucks has always strived to take leadership in environmental issues, whether it was by encouraging customers to compost used coffee grounds or offering free coffee drinks to customers who brought in their own reusable mugs. But the company faces a major problem that has few solutions—cups. Across all of its stores, Starbucks uses more than 3 billion paper cups every year, most of which end up in the trash. Though the company would love to recycle these cups, it can’t, since most processors don’t have a process for recycling paper cups that are lined with plastic, as the Starbucks cups are. The plastic lining also prevents the cups from being composted.

Questions: Please explain your answers thoroughly in paragraph form.

1. How would an increase in efficiency and production benefit your employees?

2. How would you address employees’ concerns that they are being transformed into coffee-making robots?

3. How can Starbucks maintain its commitment to reducing waste as it keeps sending paper cups to landfills?

4. What steps do you think Starbucks could take to reduce the number of paper cups it uses?

5. Describe the strategies managers can use for waste prevention and reduction.

Answer 1

Answer 1
The increase in efficiency and production will benefit the employees in many ways. If the company is saving money by serving more customers from the same number of employees by introducing efficiency in their work, then the company must provide incentives for the workers. The incentive could not only be in monetary forms but it could also be in terms of recognition performance appreciation or any other way which can boost the morale of the employees. The increase in efficiency in production will also so be beneficial for the employees because now they will be taking less time to do the same work which took more time previously.
Answer 2.
The concern that the employees are being transferred into coffee making robots would be addressed by making them understand the fact that world class organization always have lean production. This is a philosophy which was introduced by Toyota which focused on reducing waste.
Anything which is beneficial for increasing the efficiency of the company will be beneficial for the employees also. If the company is performing at Optimum efficiency it will directly or indirectly benefit the customers and the employees. If the people of explain these facts, they will surely understand the situation and act accordingly.
Answer 3.
Starbucks can maintain its commitment to reducing waste by using strictly recyclable cups. The company should strictly use only those cups which are 100% made of recyclable paper. The companies is currently using recycling paper cups aligned with plastic ,this plastic should be totally avoided and stop being put into use.
Answer 4.
The steps that Starbucks could take to reduce the number of paper cup it uses is, is it can encourage the customers to to bring there on reusable mug. Any customer who brings the usable mark must be given some type of benefit to the customer like discount or any other benefit.The company should recognize and reward those customers who have been constantly binding with the company's policy of bring in their own reusable mugs for coffees.

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