Tackling Lunchtime Lag: A Theory of Constraints Analysis at Jersey Mike's

Have you ever found yourself stuck in a queue, wondering why it's moving so slowly? Well, I had one of those moments at Jersey Mike's today, which turned into an unexpected lesson in efficiency and the Theory of Constraints.

As my wife and I waited for our sandwiches, I couldn't help but apply the Theory of Constraints principles to the situation unfolding before us.

Jersey Mike’s, like most restaurants, now allows online orders and works with delivery services. This benefits Jersey Mike’s; it increases the number of customers they can serve. However, there are also consequences of adding additional sales channels when you still have the same processes and infrastructure to process the previous sales channels.

The first indication of a problem was while waiting in the long line; they told us the wait would be longer than usual. Sure, that makes sense; after all, it’s lunchtime. If you’re unfamiliar with how Jersey Mike’s works, let’s go over that quickly.

When you walk up to the counter, the person who cuts the meats, cheeses, and bread is the person who takes your order; they do the sandwich prep and get those ready for the person who will ask you what you want on your sandwich. Sometimes, that person can hand the finished sandwiches over to another individual who will ring you up and send you happily on your way. Sometimes, the person building your sandwich is also ringing you up.

However, the same person who takes your order also takes all the online orders. So, while you're waiting to get your order in, they’re filling a backlog of online orders. And because they’re filling those orders, there are also about eight sandwiches in prep form, waiting for the next person to take them and finish them. You’re no longer just waiting on the person in front of you in the physical queue, but you’re also waiting for the people in front of you from the digital queue. This also means that online orders are continuously “cutting” in front of you while standing in line.

Jersey Mike’s took the same setup and processes they tested and perfected for physical queues and implemented it for a hybrid of both physical and digital queues.

The consequences we see of this decision are the following:

• Increased queue time. (waiting waste)
• Overstressed employees. (not respecting people)
• More frustrated customers (not respecting people)
• Lower levels of quality. (increase in re-work)
• Increase in inventory. (work in progress)

Jersey Mike's, to serve more customers, has inadvertently provided worse service to more customers.

The good news is that this is a solvable problem. Here, we have a system with constraints that aren’t being managed.

Identify the constraint.

• The constraint I could identify is taking sandwiches from prep to complete. - This is happening in one workstation. This workstation also manages ringing up physical customers and packaging orders for online customers.

Exploit the constraint:

• Split the job of completing sandwiches up from ringing up customers and getting online orders ready for pickup. Those should be separated.
• Provide employees the authority to improve their workstations to increase throughput and reduce repetitive motions.
• Improve focus on quality to reduce re-work.

Subordinate upstream processes to the constraint.

• Reduce batch size going into the constraint by prioritizing physical customer orders and having online orders wait longer before being put into the sandwich completion queue. Match sandwiches going into the queue with the throughput of the constraint.

Elevate the constraint.

• Reconfigure the physical location to provide two sandwich-building workstations to split physical customers with online customers and increase the overall throughput and capacity of the system to meet customer demands.

If this is no longer a constraint, go back to step 1.

Applying the Theory of Constraints to sandwiches was a fun lunch mental experiment. But the processes work for both physical work and knowledge work. Following the five steps above can allow anyone to improve their capacity and throughput dramatically. Jersey Mike’s risks becoming so slow that customers choose other solutions to their lunchtime needs.

Key takeaways for businesses:

• Always adapt processes when introducing new sales channels.
• Keep an eye on your constraints to avoid compromising service quality.

Next time you're in line, take a moment to think about the processes at work. How could they be improved? How would you apply the Theory of Constraints to streamline the process? Remember, every constraint is an opportunity for innovation. Let's discuss below!