a glimpse into McDonald’s continuous improvement journey

At the founding of McDonalds, some French fries were good and some were bad. It was an inconsistent product. There was no standard process and there was not a standardized finished product delivered to the customer.

Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds, invested over $3 million on perfecting French fries in the first decade as an upstart. He opened a food laboratory when his company, McDonalds, was a break even operation worth about $100K.

Louis Martino, an electrical engineer by trade, proposed to Kroc that he would like to turn the cooking of potatoes from an art to a science. Martino was speaking Kroc’s language so he agreed to invest in Martino and his research. So much so that Kroc dedicated two people full time FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR to researching the cooking of potatoes to master one way to cook French fries.

Martino discovered raising the cooking oil by 3 degrees delivered a consistent, quality product.  McDonalds installed an electrical sensor in every deep frying machine IMMEDIATELY upon Martino’s discovery so that the fry vat bumped up three degrees from its low point to deliver the French fry we know today.

Every single French fry was predictably delicious every single time. (I.e. no waste)

McDonalds evolved based on trial & error. McDonalds internalized a growth mindset and embraced experiments. Turner, Kroc’s right hand man, summarized the approach: “We were continuously looking for a better way to do things, and then a revised better way to do things, and then a revised, revised better way.”

McDonalds leveraged process as a way to build a moat in their business. It takes years of patience and tenacity for it to ultimately become a moat. Ray Kroc invested $3 million in the elimination of waste and mastery of process at the start of McDonalds. He instilled the essence of LEAN into all aspects of the business starting with the french fry.

Last week, as a leadership team, a commitment was made to implement LEAN into operations.

LEAN is usually associated with manufacturing. LEAN clearly can be applied to any industry and task if McDonalds applied it to french fries.

Onward,

Matt