Downtown Boba
Kevin Brice, Sam Gallagher, Matt Polvi, Roman Richard
Downtown Boba
Downtown Boba is a smoothie bar
and snack shop in downtown San
Luis Obispo, CA
The company was founded this year
and the owner, Samir Aburashed,
was interested in improving his
business practices for this location.
What is Boba?
Boba are small tapioca pearls that can be
included in the customer’s drinks at Downtown
Boba. These drinks range from hot teas to icy
smoothies and come in various flavors.
Scope of Project
After discussion with Samir, he
informed us that due to the location
being relatively new, they were still
working out the kinks of the business.
As such, we applied many of the
process improvement fundamentals we
learned to determine what needed to be
done to cause the most effect.
Collaboration
During the project, it came to our attention that we were not
the only group working with Samir and Downtown Boba.
After some discussion, we were able to join force with the
other group to focus on different elements of the business.
We elected the “big picture” route and will be primarily
focusing on the physical and spatial organizational issues.
Analyses Incorporated
We will be using the following processes to create an
analysis for Downtown Boba.
- Operations & Flow Diagrams
- Pareto Charts
- Direct Time Study
- “5S” study
- Bill of Materials
Process Flow Diagrams
- Focused on the 5 Most Common Items:
- Hot Tea, Cold Tea, Milk Boba, Fruit Milk
Boba, and Crepes
- Observed During Business Hours
- Laser Measurements for Design Accuracy
Cold Tea
Hot Tea
Crepe
Fruit Milk Boba
Milk Boba
Process Flow Analysis
-Hot and Cold Tea Greased Wheel
-Idealized Flow Characteristic
-Crepe and Fruit Conflict
-Refrigerator Intersection
Pareto Chart
We recorded the frequency of 100 different
customer items shown below.
Pareto Chart
Direct Time Study
Hot Tea
Observed Time: 62
Performance Rating: 100%
Normal Time: 62
Allowances: 11%
Standard Time: 68.82
Direct Time Study
Cold Tea
Observed Time: 62.1
Performance Rating: 100%
Normal Time: 62.1
Allowances: 11%
Standard Time: 68.931
Direct Time Study
Fruit Milk Boba
Observed Time: 122.2
Performance Rating: 100%
Normal Time: 122.2
Allowances: 11%
Standard Time: 135.642
Direct Time Study
Milk Boba
Observed Time: 120.9
Performance Rating: 100%
Normal Time: 120.9
Allowances: 11%
Standard Time: 134.199
Direct Time Study
Crepe
Observed Time: 154.4
Performance Rating: 100%
Normal Time: 154.4
Allowances: 11%
Standard Time: 171.384
5S Study
The application of 5S principles were valuable to this
project because of the spatial nature of the study. The Sort
and Straighten elements encouraged us to organize the
materials for the various drinks and snacks so their
respective processes could be streamlined. This allowed us
to Standardize the drink procedure and hopefully, Sustain
this as a more efficient solution.
Bill of Materials
We found that most Food and Drink items were
fairly simple, but premade drink mixtures could
be used to streamline many of the processes.
Bill of Materials
Snowbubble
Crepe
Bill of Materials
Milk Tea
Slushee
Non Applicable Analyses
We chose to not use these analyses for this project for
specific reasons.
- Value Stream Mapping
- Too simple of a process/business
- Learning Curve
- No new employees
- Overall Equipment Effectiveness
- Inconsistent measurement of elements
Proposed Changes
1. Design
a. Includes general spatial changes and specific change
for high volume business.
2. Staffing
a. Increased staff during high volume business
3. The Deal
a. Half price drink deal for hours during Farmer’s Market
Future Remodel Potential
-Refrigerator caused bottleneck
-Cluttered storage for prep material
-Lacking customer flow
Current Design
Proposed Design
Farmers Market Plan
After seeing the large crowd potential Downtown Boba
stands to draw in for business between 6:00 PM and 9:00
PM every Thursday of the year, we deduced that a
modified, more highly involved plan of action could bring in
a large source of the weekly revenue. The plan relies on
both a temporary expansion of the operating space during
the hours of farmers market but also additional staffing and
a very lucrative discount.
Closing Comments
Through the various analysis procedures
reviewed in this course, we were able to
identify efficiency issues and propose solutions
to streamline the business of Downtown Boba.
Questions?