Under a new initiative being put into practice at Starbucks’s more than 11,000 U.S. stores, there will be no more bending over to scoop coffee from below the counter, no more idle moments waiting for expired coffee to drain and no more dillydallying at the pastry case. Pushing Starbucks’s drive is Scott Heydon, the company’s ‘vice president of lean thinking,’ and a student of the Toyota production system, where lean manufacturing got its start. He and a 10-person ‘lean team’ have been going from region to region armed with a stopwatch and a Mr. Potato Head toy that they challenge managers to put together and re-box in less than 45 seconds.
Latest Starbucks Buzzword: ‘Lean’ Japanese Techniques - The Wall Street Journal (free access from Google)
