Day 152 - 11 Jul 95 - Page 12
1 of the product.
2
3 Q. The system, the actual working of the system?
4 A. That is right. So the stuff that comes in through the
5 back door, whether it is frozen, chilled or dried goods,
6 how it is stored, put away, the rotation I spoke about, how
7 it is then thawed, prepared, cooked and served to the
8 customer. So that would be my sort of view of Operations.
9
10 Q. So if somebody did spend eight hours in a store, even
11 though sometimes it might be six and sometimes it might be
12 12, or whatever, would you expect if it was eight hours the
13 Operations would be, say, six hours, equivalent maintenance
14 one hour, and admin one hour, something like that?
15 A. Again, sort of speaking to a new Supervisor, those
16 would be my guidelines in terms of breaking up their day.
17 With their increased experience, I would leave it up to
18 their discretion in terms of what they saw as an
19 appropriate use of their time in the restaurants, depending
20 on the restaurant they are visiting, obviously.
21
22 Q. So the admin hour, the kind of chart we looked at before,
23 is that the sort of thing that would be looked at in quite
24 detail to check for under-staffing levels or over-staffing
25 or what?
26 A. My experience is that the Supervisor would check it
27 with the Manager to make sure that is what they agreed was
28 the correct mixture. So, in a way, yes, the Supervisor
29 would ensure that if, for example, this piece of paper here
30 is what we had agreed with with the Store Manager that
31 would be what was on the system, and if there was not,
32 perhaps why it was chopping and changing.
33
34 Q. Is this quite an important part of the Admin, sort of like,
35 responsibility of the Supervisor to check?
36 A. No, I would not say it is an important part; because,
37 once again, with the systems we have in place now with the
38 in-store processor it is possible for me, if I was a
39 Supervisor now, to sit down with a Manager and punch in my
40 staffing levels. That is then matched up with the
41 availability of the crew and it all comes together. So the
42 system is very unintensive in terms of time required.
43 I would simply just have to hit a couple of buttons and the
44 screen would come up and it is unlikely to change.
45
46 As I mentioned, I think, in previous evidence, unless we
47 were talking about Clacton showing peaks. So, once again,
48 this may be something that we would take a look at every
49 month or so, but I would not call it a very important part
50 because, once it is agreed, then it is stuck by and, if it
51 varies, I will see it working on the floor during my hours
52 of checking the operation side of it. That is when it will
53 manifest itself the most, obviously.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When did the computerisation come in then?
56 A. That would again be three or four years ago. I would
57 be guided on that one. Obviously, we are updating the
58 system.
59
60 Q. It was completely manual at the time you were in Essex?
