Kevin Cook tells Amanda Barber how this global franchise delivers consistent quality and service.

Chances are, when you walk into any one of McDonald’s 13,700 restaurants in the US, you aren’t thinking about its operational strategies. You are thinking that a hamburger from a McDonald’s in Texas will taste exactly the same as a hamburger from a McDonald’s in Maine. That is precisely what McDonald’s USA wants you to focus on, and that is how the operational teams behind McDonald’s US restaurants know they’ve done their jobs.

Kevin Cook, senior vice president of US Restaurant Systems, oversees McDonald’s US operations, including training, learning and development, customer satisfaction, and the IT infrastructure, all with one goal in mind: consistency. Through the implementation of two major improvement projects, the company has seen 45 consecutive months of comparative sales increases.

“We improved our process, but we never walked away from our brand’s core values: focus on the customer, collaboration between our employees, suppliers, and owner/operators, and our plan to provide direction and focus to each of our restaurants,” said Cook. “We have the discipline to bring those plans to life, making it easier for the restaurant managers to serve our valued customers.”

Training cascade
In 1999, McDonald’s was in the midst of introducing a number of new items to its menu, but no process was in place to ensure a consistent nationwide roll-out. To remedy the situation, the company implemented NABIT (Nuts and Bolts Implementation Team) in its Sacramento and Atlanta regions; in 2003, NABIT went national.

NABIT training starts with the nine-person national home-office team. Two or three people from each of McDonald’s 21 regions meet with the home-office team, and the hands-on training begins. “Many companies mail out training pamphlets to get their restaurants ready for new menu items,” said Cook. “We train them shoulder-to-shoulder how to make and merchandise the new menu items in the restaurant, and how to provide superior customer service while making quality menu items at the necessary McDonald’s pace.”

Training occurs in off-site classrooms and eventually moves into restaurants. Regional managers are trained in the same fashion as each restaurant manager and crewmember. Training materials are sent to the restaurants, and each crewmember learns what the menu item should look like as it’s being assembled from start to finish. “The whole system unites on this training cascade, and then we begin advertising the new item,” said Cook.

More than 85% of McDonald’s restaurants are independently owned and operated, and each owner/operator is closely involved in the training process and the quality control procedures implemented through ROIP (Restaurant Operations Improvement Process). McDonald’s USA sends mystery shoppers to report on each restaurant’s ability to deliver the highest level of quality, service, and cleanliness, and a 1-800 customer service number enables customers to provide feedback on these factors as well.

“The philosophy behind having so many independently owned and operated restaurants is, in part, to keep a handle on quality,” said Cook. “Many of McDonald’s strengths are the franchisees in the communities in which they operate their independent businesses. The power comes when we leverage them with our supply chain and our company employees to work together.”

Continuous improvement
In 1997, the McDonald’s team needed to build a platform for the implementation of technology at its restaurants. Although many types of point-of-sale devices were scattered throughout the US, they needed to develop one platform to provide consistency. It began with cash registers.

McDonald’s cashless system has influenced many of its competitors to move in the same direction. From there the company branched out into high-speed connectivity, and today nearly 8,000 McDonald’s restaurants are Wi-Fi enabled. “We’re probably one of the top Wi-Fi providers in the US simply because we have so many restaurants making the service available to our customers,” said Cook. “As we make more and more restaurants Wi-Fi enabled, it opens the door to future technological advancements designed to benefit our valued customers and improve restaurant operations.”

Although future technologies and new menu items are under wraps, Cook has confidence the training procedures streamlined by NABIT and ROIP will continue to produce the same consistent quality McDonald’s customers have come to expect. Hamburger University (HU), the company’s accredited training center of excellence, is the base from which all aspects of training develop. The training all McDonald’s restaurant managers receive during their
attendance at HU provides the foundation for an extensive career. From his start in 1978 as a crew member to his current position as senior vice president, Cook said the skills he developed while at the university prepared him to run a multi-million dollar restaurant business and manage all of its employees.

“The courses are college-accredited and can be applied toward general business degrees outside of HU,” said Cook. “HU is another way we focus on improvement and it demonstrates not only our commitment to our employees but also our commitment to evolve with, and meet the needs of, our valued customers.”