Cost and Dependability

Cost: Efficiencies gained by the introduction of the Speedee Service System.
McDonalds became the leader of the fast food industry due vast improvements in all five key performance indicators. This section will examine how McDonalds eliminated major inefficiencies in their processes while the company was still in its infancy.
One of the goals set by the McDonald brothers and Ray Kroc (Founder of McDonalds), was to find the quickest way to provide food to the customer while maintaining quality and not incurring new costs. McDonalds capitalized on the customers’ needs for a quick, to go, easy to eat, tasty meal. The introduction of the assembly line proved to be a revolutionary business practice that is shared among all present day competitors. An assembly line for assembling hamburgers, fries, desserts, and beverages removed the dependence on a single specialized cook. The old inefficient system employed one to two specialized cooks to create small quantities of many different types of food. In addition, these dishes required the customers’ to have access to cutlery. Both these factors were seen as a bottleneck for the customers looking to eat something while on the move. As a result, their new system simplified the menu items and the made it easier for any employee to “prepare” an order. Menu items that required cutlery were replaced with more portable products. This way, the money spent on dishwashers, waiters, and extra cutlery supplies was reinvested into the company.   Another operation change that management introduced was pre-making all the ingredients so that at the restaurant level, the employees only had to re-heat and assemble the product. For example, all of the burgers had pretty much the same condiments so they didn't need high skilled chefs. The hiring of unskilled workers that were paid at low wages soon became the norm. Fortunately, the current system was easy enough for anyone to abide by. In the end, this became a very efficient solution to...