I observed a Subway sandwich restaurant on November 20, 2015 in Citrus Heights between the hours of 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm. I choose this time because it represents the peak hours of operation and would provide me with the best possible data for this blog. The customer will be asked what kind of bread they would like and depending on the order, the bread may be toasted, which would increase the time. After the bread station, the vegetable station would be next, then the meats station, and finally the condiments and final wrapping. The process would finish with the cashier at the far end of the assembly line. As I entered the establishment, there was a small line in front of me with approximately 3-4 people in front of me. The four people ahead of me ordered a total of five sandwiches (one person ordered two) and took a total of 8:25 minutes. This translates to about 5 sandwiches / 8:25 minutes = 101 seconds (about 1:41 minutes per sandwich). I purposefully ordered a simple sandwich off the “number” menu and did not order a custom sandwich. I wanted to see how fast they can make the sandwich as a basis of measurement. As my turn came up, I placed my order and waited for the process to begin. It took me 1:20 minutes to order and pay for my basic sandwich. The problem really starts to arise when there are many people in line and breads that have to be toasted. Toasting bread takes about 45 seconds and adds a great amount time to overall process. All the orders were ordered from word of mouth and the cashier would have to ask the people who made the sandwich what the customer ordered. If the sandwich was a custom order, the worker would have to explain the entire contents of the sandwich to the cashier thus increasing the time even more. There were only two employees at the time and the cashier would often be the same person that would make the sandwiches. 2. The main problem of Subway is that the lines and order times can increase and create dissatisfaction among the customers. The time in line, bread wait times, and creating “custom” sandwich creates a bottleneck and increases the average time. The quality of food at Subway has always been adequate and with all the negative press the company has been receiving, you would think the franchise operations would create tools for a smother process. Wait time would be main operational performance measure for customers who are on their lunch break. They have very valuable minutes and cannot be using them waiting in line.
3. Increasing the bottleneck by staffing more employees would be a way to decrease the average wait times. The owner would have to be very careful in doing this because they would have to do a demand schedule and find out the number of customers during peak hours. Would hiring an extra employee be beneficial to increase customer satisfaction but to have them sit idly for the rest of the day? The ideal situation would require an employee to come in for a partial day or to several partial day employees overlap their schedules so that they will fill the rush hour crunch.