A friend of mine took me a conveyor sushi restaurant in Yokohama, Japan. And I was so surprised by the new conveyor system in the restaurant because I had never seen such technology in my rural town where I live. Probably it was pretty common in Yokohama and to my friend. So he was surprised by me because I was so surprised by the sushi restaurant.
The conveyor sushi restaurant had two conveyors: upper side and lower side. The upper conveyor flowed many different types of “poplar” sushi continuously and smoothly. The lower conveyor delivered the special order to the specific table where ordered it. The lower conveyor for the special order was control by the high speed servo control with dumper control. Because of the dumper control, the conveyor never spilled a soup dish even with the high speed delivery.
The special order was placed through the tablet computer on each table. The tablet computer showed all menus with pictures, and a customer just needed to push a picture for a special order. Then the servo controlled lower conveyor delivered it soon.
I was also surprised by the sanitary dishes. All dishes were covered by a plastic case, and the plastic case could not be removed until a customer took the dish out from the conveyor. You don’t need to worry about insanitary caused by someone else.
Furthermore, when you took a dish out from the conveyor, the price of the dish was automatically charged to your bill.
All the value flowed smoothly without waste.
I unintentionally screamed “Wow, it is a real Lean system!!” because I was so delighted with seeing the Lean sushi manufacturing in the restaurant. When I said “Lean”, my friend asked me what the Lean means. So I explained about the Lean to him as follow.
1. Definition of Value
What kind of values do the customers want or pay for at a conveyor sushi restaurant? Probably the customer values could be Fast, Delicious, Reasonable price, Sanitary , Sushi variations, and Amount. The conveyor sushi I visited provided all of the values to the customers.
Especially the value of fast was excellent by using the special order conveyor with servo control. The order using the tablet computer and checking bill using the conveyor system were also provided the value of fast. There were no waiting time for ordering and checking. It could provide high value to the customers in lunch time.
2. Value Stream
Because of conveyor sushi restaurant, the value stream was built-in. The conveyors (upper and lower) connected the kitchen and the restaurant space seamlessly, and the value (i.e., sushi) flowed continuously on it.
The customers pulled the value from the conveyors one by one (One-Piece-Flow).
The information was also flowed smoothly between the tablet computer, the customers, and the kitchen.
3. Pull System
The upper conveyor continuously flowed many sushi. It looked like a buffer (or inventory) in the system. It could be yes, but their computer system kept monitoring what kind of sushi a customer pulled from the conveyor, and the chef filled only the same kind and the same number of sushi to the conveyor. The feedback from the customer and the conveyor system realized a “Kanban System” in the restaurant.
It was a real “Lean Manufacturing” sushi restaurant. If you are familiar to the Lean Principles and the Lean tools, you are able to enjoy the restaurant.
4. Missing Value
If you feel a value on conversation with a chef or a waiter/waitress, you will miss the value at the restaurant. I didn’t talk with any employee at the restaurant because the system was so automated. Even I couldn’t see a chef in the kitchen.
If you are okay without any conversation, the new conveyor sushi restaurant in Japan is must-see.