Multiproduct Traditional Japanese Cuisine Restaurant Improves Labor Productivity by Changing Cooking Processes According to Service Product Characteristics

Abstract

This study introduces three cooking process improvements for a multiproduct traditional Japanese cuisine restaurant to improve labor productivity and to assess relations between offered process changes and service product characteristics. Restaurant productivity is the lowest among service industries because restaurants are labor-intensive. Therefore, the industry is affected by service product characteristics. Combining line and cell cooking systems, batch cooking using partial freezers, and combining built-to-order and built-to-plan cooking are introduced into actual multiproduct traditional Japanese cuisine restaurants to change cooking operations and improve labor productivity. Results show that all cooking process changes reduce work hours. The correlation coefficient between work hour and sales revenue improved by line and cell cooking, but it is degraded by batch cooking and built-to-order and built-to-plan cooking. Line and cell cooking enhance simultaneity and reduce the influence of perishability because the system adopts hourly work hours to fluctuation of hourly sales by changing cooking systems (line/cell). However, the system does not resolve heterogeneity and intangibility difficulties because the system is intended to resolve quantitative difficulties of cooking operation systems. Batch cooking systems reduce the influence of simultaneity and perishability of service products because the method reduces cooking frequency using partial freezers. Furthermore, the system improves heterogeneity because the restaurant can provide head-chef-made dishes even if the chef is not working at the restaurant. However, the system does not resolve difficulties of intangibility because the system is not designed to improve customers’ subjective evaluation for service. Built-to-order and built-to-plan cooking reduce the respective influences of simultaneity, perishability, and heterogeneity of service products to some degree because built to plan teams also practice batch cooking using partial freezers. However, the system does not resolve the difficulty of intangibility because the system is not intended to improve customers’ subjective evaluation for service.