Practice Observation

    For my practice observation, I chose to observe the Panera Bread drive thru in Walpole.  The drive thru consists of one person making food, one person taking orders and making barista drinks, one person consolidating the orders, and another on the window cashing out the customers.  That's on a rare good day where there is actually a full staff working.  Usually it ends up being one person making food and one to three people doing everything else,  which is not enough people to make things run smoothly when we are busy.  So, the drive thru ends up only being a couple of people running around all stressed out with twelve minute ticket times. 
    The drive thru can be broken into two groups; the day crew and the night crew.  The morning crew tends to get along better because they are with each other everyday.  There seems to only be one or two people that don't really fit in.  In the morning, you can also count the catering coordinator as drive thru because even though her job is separate from the drive thru, she has to share the same space.  The night crew tends to be a little more dramatic and is split into two groups:  the people who actually work and the high school kids who are pretty much useless.  But, since everybody works so much, coworkers start to be real friends and everybody knows everybody else's business.
    Technology plays a huge role in the drive thru.  First, the technology that is used to make food.  We can't make any of our pastas without the microwave.  We can't heat any of our sandwiches without the panini press.  We also can't keep our soups at a hot enough temperature to be safe to serve without our heated soup wells that are plugged into the wall.  Everything must be kept refrigerated as well.  Next, the barista has to use the blenders to make all of the smoothies and frozen drinks and the espresso machine to make any of the espresso drinks, chai lattes, and hot chocolates.  Lastly, there is a ton of technology involved in taking orders.  We all have to wear a head set to listen and speak to the customers.  Then, we have a computer that we enter the order into.  Then, you send the order which gets sent to the computer screen on the main production line, the drive thru production line, the barista station if there are any drinks, the computer over the consolidation counter, and the computer that is used to cash out customers.  If any of these things stop working, it makes it impossible for the drive thru to run smoothly and efficiently.
    The main goal of this community is to work together to get orders to the customers as quickly as possible.  As long as the technology is all working correctly, it greatly aids the process.