I utilized Synergy Restaurant Consultants in 2009 while I was serving as Director of Operational Efficiency for California Pizza Kitchen. Dean, Danny and their team performed a time and motion study on 350 prep ingredients and about 100 plate recipes. They delivered the study on time and in a very user-friendly format that allowed CPK to then use that information to determine the labor portion of the fully burdened margin for every menu item. This allowed the company to then make much better menu pricing decisions as well as re-engineer recipes for items with good sales but a low margin. The time/motion information also allowed CPK the ability to assign a prep time for each item on a daily prep list to better allocate necessary prep hours and hold employees accountable for completing that list on time.
Based on this good work by Synergy, I used its services again in late 2009 and early 2010 for a BOH Operations Assessment, where we spent a week in 3 units identifying inefficiencies within CPK’s production model. Based on the recommendations in that study, CPK was able to remove 40 to 60 BOH hours per unit per week from the labor schedules, which was quite impressive. I very much enjoyed working with Dean and Danny and appreciated their in-depth knowledge of the operational aspects of our business.