What's the beef?
                                    
                                    
     For years, Americans have watched as the world's two largest
and most successful hamburger chains, Burger King and McDonald's,
battled it out over supposed differences:Flame-broiling vs.
Frying, Doing It All For You vs. Having It Your Way, Whoppers vs.
Big Macs. But according to a Mc Donalds training film, the
differences between McDonald's,  10,000 restaurants, and $13
billion in sales and Burger King's 4,500 restaurants and $ 1.5
billion in sales are quite real. 
     ln 1954, Ray Kroc,a fifty year old paper cup and
milkshake-mixer salesman, visited the McDonald Brothers' bustling
restaurant in San Bernardino, California in 1954. Impressed with
their volume of business and the simplicity of their limited menu
operation, he struck a deal for franchise rights, and  opened his
first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois in 1955, and built
McDonald's into the real burger king it is.
     Surprisingly, Burger King also began with a visit to the
original Mc Donald's. In l952-two years before Kroc arrived-Keith
Cramer, owner of a small Florida drive-in restaurant, made a
pilgrimage to watch the McDonald brothers in action. He was so
impressed that he adapted their methods and began franchising his
"Insta-Burger King" concept. A year later, the enterprise was 
                             


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taken over by franchisees Jim McLamore and David Edgerton. At
first,Burger King was concentrated in the Southeast. But in 1967
it was acquired by Pillsbury, which began to expand the chain
nation wide. With Pillsbury's economic muscle behind it, Burger
King could challenge McDonald's in head-to-head competition.
Their ad strategy was, Burger King encouraged consumers to
compare the "differences" between the two giants. None of the
ads, however, pinpointed the real differences.
     The biggest difference between Burger King and McDonald's
is, McDonald's cooks their hamburgers using a batch process,
while on the other hand, Burger King cooks theirs using a
machine-paced assembly process.  The next time you visit one of
your local  restaurants, watch how the burgers are cooked. 
McDonald's fries their hamburgers on a large plater, in batches,
or groups, of up to twelve. Two or more batches may be on the
plater at one time, in various stages of cooking. When the guy in
the back says "Quarter Pounders Up,"a whole batch is ready at the
same time.  Burger King is built around its "continuous chain
broiler." Raw hamburgers are placed at one end, and 80 seconds
later they come out the other end, cooked. This machine-paced
assembly process is common in most industrial manufacturing
processes. It turns hamburger production into an assembly line,
much like the type Henry Ford introduced to automobiles in the
early 1900s. 
      When hiring workers, McDonald's makes a big point about
joining the McDonald's team.  Mc Donalds uses teamwork and non-
salary befifits as an incentive for doing good jobs. Most         
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McDonald's have a framed picture of the "Crew Member of the
Month" on a wall near the cash registers. McDonald's holds an
Olympic-style competition to reward the best workers from around
the country at each aspect of its food preparation. Not long ago,
its advertising featured successful people who had once worked at
McD's. When ordering, look at the McD uniforms. Many of the
workers have pins or special name-tags that signify proficiency
or accomplishment at a task.  Go to Burger King and all you see
is a "Help Wanted" sign. There are no incentives to join the
"Burger King Pit Crew" and the non-salary benefits are much less
than those offered by McDonald's. In 1984,  Burger King payed one
dollar less than Mc Donalds.
     How does this relate to production methods? In a batch
process, the speed of delivery is dependent upon the worker, At
McDonald's, 12 burgers are made at one time. They are hand-seared 
after 20 seconds on the grill, turned at 60 seconds, and pulled
at 10. When they come off the grill, workers must quickly add
condiments, wrap and shelve them, If there are two batches going
in different stages of cooking, it means that speed is even more
essential to keep the production moving, And this means that the
crew must all be motivated, or the process gums up.  People must
be willing and able to help in another's area in case of backup,
Teamwork and a sense of team must be present, Thus the
motivational and non salary rewards.
     At Burger King, on the other hand, no matter how fast the 
burgers are prepared once they are cooked, the rate limiting step
is the cooking itself, One burger at a time comes off the chain 
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broiler at the rate of eight per minute, maximum. The machine
paces the process.  Again, in slow times this is not entirely
accurate because at these points in the day, BK keeps an
inventory of already cooked patties in a steam tray at the end of
the broiler, That is why BK sometimes has to microwave its
burgers.  As long as you can do your part of the assembly process
in 7.5 seconds per burger including, adding the pickles and
onions in another 7 seconds it's easy even if you're not very
motivated.  Even if you get totally exited and love your work,
and can do it faster, so what? You still have to wait for the
machine to spit out the next patty. This means that Burger King
saves money on wages and hiring expense, by not paying for all
the motivation inspired cross-talk.
     Batch processing also means less room for individual
differences in members of the batch, Twelve burgers come up, 12
burgers are all done exactly the same. At Burger King, since one
patty comes out at a time, each can be made to individual order.
Thus the "Have It Your Way" point of difference vs. "We Do It All
For You" harped on by Burger King stems directly from the
difference in production methods. Batch processing means that
twelve burgers will be ready (or 10 Quarter Pounders, or 6 Macs,
since 12 patties = 6 Macs), whether or not customers are ready
for them. During rush hour this is not a problem, but at other
times it can be bad in a business that promises fresh food.
McDonald's and Burger King throw old food out-after 10 minutes. 
In McDonald's case, That is what those cards with the numbers are
doing on the McDonald's food shelves, When the minute hand gets 
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to that number, all food in front of the card gets pitched.  
     How can McDonald's stay competitive with its system? The
answer is that, when it is running right, the batch process
allows for much greater throughput and faster speed of service.
Speed is one big reason for the popularity of fast 
food in the first place. If an item is waiting in a bin, it
obviously takes less time to serve than one made "your way." The
batch process can deliver 300 burgers an hour vs. 200 for the
continuous chain broiler.
     Speed standards given to individual restaurants by each head
quarters bear this out. At side-by-side locations, the standard
for a McDonald's is up to twice as fast as for a Burger King a
customer could have a wait of, say, 90 seconds vs. three minutes.
     This difference may not be that noticeable per individual
customer, but it means that McDonald's can do twice the dollar
volume at peak than can a similarly sized Burger King. Even
customer flow is regulated by the speed of the broiler, Once the
steam tray and bin reserves are gone, Burger King simply cannot
serve more than eight burgers per minute. This accounts for
at least some of the tremendous difference in the dollar volume
per store between the two chains ($ 1.5 Billion over 4,500
stores, vs. $ 13 billion over 10,000). McDonald's is systemically
better equipped to handle crowded areas. It is only during
off-peak times when Burger King comes close in dollar volume, and
is actually more efficient because of less waste, paper, and
salary expenses.        vid-kid
     
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