Burger King Vs. McDonalds

Although both McDonalds [1] and Burger King [2] are competing in the same business, they adopted different process design for making their hamburgers. Both processes start from the raw material, which are the patties, the buns, and condiments. Both McDonalds and BK have 2 sizes of patties. McDonalds has regular patties and quarterly patties while BK has 2 and 3.6 ounces beef patties.

McDonalds adopted a batch process where the regular patties were cooked on Grill #1 with a batch not exceeding 24 and a total cooking time of 100 seconds. The quarterly patties were cooked on Grill #2 operated at a higher temperature with a total cooking time of 270 seconds and a batch not exceeding 10. A light and a buzzer signaled the finish of cooking, after which the grills were cleans for 20 seconds. The buns were caramelized (toasted) using 2 different caramelizers, one for the mac bun and the other for the quarterly pounder buns. Half of the burgers were caramelized first and placed on a tray. While the first half was dressed with condiments, the other half was caramelized. Pickles, onions, lettuce, and cheese were added by hand, while premeasured amounts of mustard, ketchup, and Mac sauce were applied from the respective containers. The finished sandwiches were labeled and send to the corresponding bin.

On the other hand, BK adopted combination of batch and line process. Because both sizes of patties were the same thickness, a broiler was used to simultaneously cook the 2 different beef patty sizes as well as the buns. The broiler had 2 meat chains, each with an 80 seconds transmit time, and one bun chain that moved twice as fast. A two-foot loading space was added at the front end of the broiler, which enabled the operator to batch load the chains up to 12 burgers. The cooked patties and the warmed buns were stored in a steam table for up to 10 minutes. Sandwiches were finished on the board that had row condiments and microwaved for 12 seconds. Only two sandwiched could be processed at a time due to the existence of 2 microwaves and the total assembly process took 30 seconds. The sandwiches were stored in the chute for up to 10 minutes.