I have now had 2 meetings with my mentor, Tim Akerman. Tim has been extremely helpful in stimulating ongoing analysis of my business and breaking it down into it’s simple constituents. As a result of our discussions, we have amended 2 parts of our process.
1. Several of our flavours were piped and flattened off, a very time-consuming process. We now pipe this in a swirl saving several hours of labour a week without detriment to the appearance of the cheesecake and in fact drawing a positive response from our outlets and customers.
2. The plastic rings on our cheesecakes were taken off and placed in a storage bin whereupon later they would be taken from the bin and placed on a tray. We now remove the rings directly on to aforementioned tray for use later thus removing an entire stage of the process and once again saving labour resource.
At Tim’s urging, I am now in the process of training my driver to tray up his own deliveries before departure, this will shortly mean that I can avoid having to get up at 3.45am on a Wednesday and Saturday to perform this straightforward task for him!
I am also now developing product specs for use by all members of staff which aid
1. Identification of products for my driver when traying up deliveries
2. Consistency in production methods and quality both in terms of flavour and consistency of product and appearance for production staff.
We are in the process of redesigning the layout of the production area to identify efficiencies – we are now on Plan B as the original suggested layout was impractical due to health and safety issues.
Tim’s input has been invaluable both in terms of the efficiency and profitability of my business but also on a personal level in helping me to identify my own goals and their effect upon my personal life.
– Matt Watts, Owner and Managing Director