Rainy Day Operations

1) Order Taking Speed:

Orders need to be taken quickly. All unnecessary conversation and actions need to be eliminated. Examples include swiping credit cards and asking to scan app. No payment should be done in this role. The best order takers should be the ones taking orders. This is the most important position in the rain. The order taker's goal is to finish every order before the car gets to the end of the canopy.
 

2) Payment Positions:
 

a. Fixed Position:

This person uses the black cart that is kept in the storage container and a regular cash drawer. They check every car to ensure payment and tender any unpaid orders. Their goal is to keep the space between the window and their position full of cars

 

b. Mobile Position:

This person stays under the canopy and tenders all orders that it can without creating a gap. If the pause to tender the order would create a gap in front of the canopy, then this order should not be tendered. This person reminds the order takers not to take payment, and helps them discover ways to speed up the order  taking process. The goal of this role is to make sure that there is no gap between the fixed payment person and the end of the canopy.

 

3) Inside:
 

a. Collective goals:

The goal of everyone on the inside team is to make sure that the order takers never have to stop taking orders. If the order takers get to the end of the canopy and have to stop, the inside team is losing the race against the outside team.

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b. Window:

The window's goal is to get the food to the customer as quick as possible. They should have the food and drink in hand and be leaning out the window before the car arrives to the window. The goal of the window person is to make sure each car leaves the window within 20 seconds of arriving.

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c. Drinks:

This role is similar to normal, but the biggest change is that each order needs to be completed within 30 seconds of storing. 

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d. Bagging:

This role is also similar to normal. The biggest change is because the order takers are so close to the window there wont be a lot of orders on the screen, or a lot of already bagged orders. This means that baggers should start orders as soon as they are stored.

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e. Pusher: 

This role is similar to normal, but as with the other inside roles, there is an extra level of urgency. It is important that the next car in line and the car at the window are being assembled by the baggers. The pusher should determine when to park cars. And no more than 2 cars should be parked at any time. Cars should only be parked when the order takers are waiting for cars to pull under the canopy.

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4) Kitchen:
The kitchen needs to be aware that they wont see the orders as quick as normal and they need to be ready to complete every order within 20 seconds of storing.

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5) Parking Cars:
The pusher should determine when to park cars. And no more than 2 cars should be parked at any time. Cars should only be parked when the order takers are waiting for cars to pull under the canopy.

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6) Additional Thoughts:

a. Customers don’t want to open their windows in the rain.

 

b. It is helpful to have leaders dedicated to the inside and the outside with the sole responsibility to remind their areas of the differences and push their teams to be a little quicker. Helping the team to see ways to increase speed is huge.

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c. If it is cold, be sure to rotate the team members outside often. The coldest position is fixed payment because they don’t have a heater. The hands of the fixed payment person can get really cold, so hand warmers from the camping section of Walmart are helpful.

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d. Make sure all order takers have all the payment stuff and that they take advantage of any breaks in the rain to go ahead and move out beyond the canopy.