Business Week reports that all of our American ingenuity is finding a home on fast food assembly lines:
When I take my place on the line and start to prepare burritos, tacos, and chalupas—they won’t let me near a Crunchwrap Supreme—it is immediately clear that this has been engineered to make the process as simple as possible. The real challenge is the wrapping. Taco Bell once had 13 different wrappers for its products. That has been cut to six by labeling the corners of each wrapper differently. The paper, designed to slide off a stack in single sheets, has to be angled with the name of the item being made at the upper corner. The tortilla is placed in the middle of the paper and the item assembled from there until you fold the whole thing up in the wrapping expediting area next to the grill. “We had so many wrappers before, half a dozen stickers; it was all costing us seconds,” says Harkins. In repeated attempts, I never get the proper item name into the proper place. And my burritos just do not hold together.
With me on the line are Carmen Franco, 60, and Ricardo Alvarez, 36. The best Food Champions can prepare about 100 burritos, tacos, chalupas, and gorditas in less than half an hour, and they have the 78-item menu memorized. Franco and Alvarez are a precise and frighteningly fast team. Ten orders at a time are displayed on a screen above the line, five drive-thrus and five walk-ins. Franco is a blur of motion as she slips out wrapping paper and tortillas, stirs, scoops, and taps, then slides the items down the line while looking up at the screen. The top Food Champions have an ability to scan through the next five orders and identify those that require more preparation steps, such as Grilled Stuffed Burritos and Crunchwrap Supremes, and set those up before returning to simpler tacos and burritos. When Alvarez is bogged down, Franco slips around him and slides Crunchwrap Supremes into their boxes. For this adroit time management and manual dexterity, Taco Bell starts its workers at $8.50 an hour, $1.25 more than minimum wage.
At least tonight when I cry myself to sleep, this article means I’ll have something specific to blame.
This article appears in May 5-11, 2011.
I worked at a Taco Bell in college years ago. The meat was the lowest quality they could find, and those 50-pound bean bags had to be inspected for dead mice. Sometimes mice body parts made it into the frijole steamer though. But that was OK, because both mouse poop and mouse body parts were easily hidden with their spicy sauce.
If Taco Bell could only find a way to get their employees to fill an order correctly. I’ve found that I have to unpack the bag and check it or there is a 50% chance that something will be missing. In-and-Out Burger pays their employees more than the other fast food joints and it shows in the quality of service and cleanliness of their stores.
yea i had the same problem. I will not eat their cheap ground beef( probably contains 15% pink slime, so says jamie oliver) Anyway i ordered a steak taco, paid the steak taco price, then drove home only to discover that they had given me a ground beef taco. I was pissed, drove back and demanded my money back(forget the gas money). they stated they could not refund my money but would be happy to “remake” it. yea right, they failed the first time, so the 2nd time they gonna get it right? maybe the kid will get pissed and spit in my food. i just wanted my $. they never gave me a refund, and i “returned” the taco about 3 days later when i drove by and threw it at the store window in a fit of rage. screw taco hell, i will never eat their craap again. viva burrito is way better, and the meat is not cheap crap but good shredded.
This article’s facts are wrong. I am a Taco Bell RGM (Restaurant General Manager) first of the employees at Taco Bell start at minimum wage in Tucson AZ @ $7.35. The shift leaders start by making one dollar more so $8.35+. Dan Gibson maybe you should get your data checked before publishing. Also in the Tucson market we have the company’s highest management turnover, and the staff turnover is nearly as high. Largely due to the upper management- DMA leader Veronica Ashelmen and her lackey Area Coach Phil Roper (A pervert who hits on every young, tall, Hispanic female he can get his hands on) he is an individual who lacks basic management skills and capability. They micro manage and care only about the bottom line so their is no wonder so many management personal have quit or taken a voluntary demotion. The reason why so many people out their complain that Taco Bell can never seem to get their order right is because its true we can’t…not with the tremendous amount of rules, regulations, huge menu, procedures, micro-management, and methods. Most employees making $7.35 never stay long enough to learn them.
I used to manage a Taco Bell many years ago when I was in my 20’s and believe me the upper management stunk. The meat, if you want to call it meat, was the lowest quality I have ever seen. One morning I was in the store by my self trying to fix up the place. The place was broken down. You had to fix everything yourself without the possiblility of reinbursement. Anyway, I was robbed and tied up and my car stolen. Do you think the company did anything to reimburse me for anything? The food was so bad the employees would go to near by fast food places to buy there lunch and/or dinner. I finaly had to quit. When you have management who is noncomplacement and a company who buys lousy meat,produce, dairy, and by the way, did you know when you deep fry bad tortillas the green goes away?