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Permalink Reply by Jesse -D-> on May 12, 2009 at 5:50am

I am estimating, but I'd say 2 min max.

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Permalink Reply by Jesse -D-> on May 14, 2009 at 6:46am

Al, I read over your PM late last and forgot the questions you asked. What was it that you wanted more details on?

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Permalink Reply by Al Sterling on May 14, 2009 at 8:21am

Well, mind must be turning to mush... I just got into my office (at home) ... (commute's a killer, right?), and read your PM?, but can't remember the question. It'll come back to me. On the elapsed times, a previous informal survey of prosumer geared geeks came up with 4 to 5 minutes. Many, because it's not commercial retail, add seconds because they're manually dropping their 14-18 grams of beans into an empty grinder hopper and sweeping the chute when done. This follows the thought of "grind to order" with no residual grounds. But even with a hopper fed grinder, no time was under 3 minutes. I went back into the youtube archives to look at WBC videos, or any videos, so that I could check times again, but couldn't find a straight-shot-to-drink video that was isolated enough. A couple years ago, I connected with Freiling Products, and at that time, their new counter top milk chiller. It made total sense, because it followed the concept that if you could easily dispense milk next to the prep area, and not stoop, walk or open and close a fridge door for the milk, you could really cut motion from the process. I just got an SCAA email bulletin, and it looks like Freiling was featured in Atlanta, and their milk chillers were positioned at the break areas. Milk storage and dispensing is a major time consumer, and they Freiling, I think, has a great solution. Other units have been available, but they're much larger. Problem has been capacity of the chiller unit. I'll be at Coffee Fest, Las Vegas, and hope to see them there. BTW, I became a motorcycle collector and rebuilder back in my day, but had many friends who were buying, trading and rebuilding British sports cars. Would you believe that my best friend, in the late 60's, was buying and selling "Bug Eyed Sprites" for +/- $300 a car! I'd guess that now, one original wheel would go for that much?

Jesse -D-> said:

Al, I read over your PM late last and forgot the questions you asked. What was it that you wanted more details on?

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Permalink Reply by Jesse -D-> on May 14, 2009 at 8:43am

I'd kill for a bug-eye, when you look at them from the front it is as if they are saying "drive me, it will be fun. I promise."

Really no time under 3min? I know that from empty pitcher, no ground coffee----> finished drink (milk drink) my average time was 1min 20 sec. (actually for some reason I landed on 1:16 a lot) I added .5min to my time to allow time to clean the pitcher. I didn't feel the need to allow time for anything else because a truly efficient barista will be putting things away and cleaning as the process is happening. I feel like I am missing a step or something because 3min seems too long.

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Permalink Reply by Al Sterling on May 14, 2009 at 9:50am

I've found there's an "ideal time", and then there's "fully audited" time. As you know, in the course of a shift, usually, a food prep person will slow down, speed up, and understandably be interrupted. For costing, I've been looking at the isolated start to finish times, and then overall average time. Allot of food and beverage operations look at total-serves over a full shift, and do their cost accounting from what you might call a "larger population." When the discussion about that dangling arm and multi-tasking came up, it raised allot of questions. For costing, I've always charged off 5 minutes per drink item. Even though, under lab-type conditions, you can do it much faster, in practice, average time-per-serve at the end of a day seems higher. For cost accounting, some will add in unscheduled counter cleanup during the course of the day, or an end of the day shutdown cleaning. You know you don't stop processing drink tickets to do a detailed counter cleaning. So that's deferred-accumulated labor. Most people wait for a slow period or break in the customer flow. Both you and Alexandra shared what I'd expect from a skilled barista. I'd really like to get more input, and I'm thinking maybe I should call some retail shops and industry friends I know to get their input. Most of my close friends that have been successful as independents, seem to have grown via their passion. Success followed. I'm still of a belief that there's a happy medium between quality and efficiency. Here in CA, In-n-Out Burger is my best example of efficiency married to uncomprosmised high quality. Their operation is the best example I have of great customer to server contact, short but workable menu, quality product, and a repeatable sales and facility model. IMO, that's an approach that can work for specialty coffee.

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Permalink Reply by Jesse -D-> on May 14, 2009 at 1:10pm

I see now that I am in no real position to answer your question. It sounds like the answer to your question lies in the formula: [minutes in a shift]/[avg.# of drinks made in that shift.] am I beginning to understand what the question is?

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Permalink Reply by Al Sterling on May 14, 2009 at 5:46pm

I'm working both individual and averaged times. I was looking for just what you shared. The factoring of a full shift accounts for those "interruptions" and mishaps that slow things down. I just have a hunch that quantifying as accurately as possible will show higher times than we think.

Jesse -D-> said:

I see now that I am in no real position to answer your question. It sounds like the answer to your question lies in the formula: [minutes in a shift]/[avg.# of drinks made in that shift.] am I beginning to understand what the question is?

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