Who does not love a good trip to the islands? Speaking of such a trip conjures up images of sandy beaches, palm trees and cool drinks. With visuals like that, few people would turn down a trip to an island. Of course, when you are talking about islands within the production areas of a restaurant, that line of thought changes abruptly.
A production island is a workstation so far-removed from the rest of the production area, or foodservice mainland, so to speak, that it becomes virtually impossible to have an employee easily slide over from this station to help an adjacent one. Generally speaking, when an employee has to travel large distances, say more than 12 to 15 feet, to go from one workstation to another, the operation has production islands. Such distances separating the two areas result in a premium labor cost for the production area/system.
In some instances, designers create a production island out of necessity. For example, in the name of supporting food safety, a design may call for keeping the raw ingredients at a breading station away from cooked food items at another station. In other instances, though, production islands can represent relics from a bygone era when labor cost much less, and a restaurant operator could afford the luxury of independently staffing these stations.
Production islands fall into one of two categories: First, the operator deems the production island critical enough that it warrants constant deployment. Second, because the operator deems this island not as critical as other areas, team members often have to enter and exit this station to support other ones. The latter scenario represents the more costly of the two. Other challenges do arise from the first scenario, namely because they essentially create a specialized position. In response to higher labor costs and a lack of qualified employees, though, many operators are opting to cross train their teams thus creating a jack of all trades, so to speak.
Regardless, either scenario is sub-optimal for today’s labor market because of the prominent role the jack of all trades will continue to play in foodservice operators.
When allocating space, operators and designers should think about how to integrate all aspects of production with minimal distance between critical positions. The thought process should focus on facilitating a jack-of-all-trades employee though design versus trying to create specialists through overly segregated spaces.
The same formula may not apply to all restaurant types, but the logic is consistent throughout the gamut of operation types: limit segregation and facilitate cross-execution across workstations. Having multiple stations with different functionalities close to one another will simplify operation execution, but cross-training can also help the labor force be more engaged.
The island-living mentality makes the most sense while you’re still on the island. Once you get off the island, though, more efficient methods of design emerge.
