Future Shock

More sales with less work? That's what Arby's "Kitchen of the Future" is attempting to accomplish with the franchise's first major redesign in a quarter century. The prototype optimizes employee efficiency with new equipment that makes for easier cleanup and maintenance, longer product life and better product quality. But beyond modernizing the kitchen, the company hopes the proj-ect will bring some much-needed relief for labor headaches.

"There's a lot of pressure on franchisees to hire and retain employees. They face difficulties every day with that problem," says Steven A. Jones, Arby's director of franchise development. "After doing volume simulations through a mock-up [of the kitchen], we were surprised and excited to find we could do significantly higher sales volumes with anywhere from two to three fewer people."

Arby's also hopes the project will encourage employee retention by creating a safer, more fun environment, according to Jones.

While the prototype still needs to undergo real-world testing before being implemented, franchisees can expect the flexibility of "a component type of retrofit or doing the whole package," says Jones.

With benefits in sales and operations, Arby's franchisees should be itching to make the Kitchen of the Future the kitchen of today.

Contact source

• Arby's, 1000 Corporate Dr., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33334

This article was originally published in the April 2001 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Future Shock.