4-page Case Study - Posted 4/27/2007

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Blue C Sushi

Sushi Restaurant Enhances Quality Control, Customer Service with RFID Technology

James Allard and Steve Rosen, co-founders of Blue C Sushi, built on the popularity of sushi restaurants by importing the Japanese concept of kaiten sushi, where customers sit at counters or tables and are presented with sushi-laden plates that move along a conveyor belt. Allard and Rosen wanted to enhance the quality control at Blue C restaurants and the efficiency of the chefs while being able to capture data on customer buying habits. Working with solutions provider Kikata and Intermec, a leading RFID systems provider and Microsoft® Gold Certified partner, Blue C Sushi deployed a system using ultra high frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and scanners, plus Microsoft software, including BizTalk® RFID—a technology component of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006. With the solution, chefs can more closely monitor what food items are on plates and when they are removed or running low. The system also captures customer-buying data that can be used to plan operations more effectively.

Situation

With its tasty food, busy neighborhood locales, and the sounds of customers chatting and chefs chopping, Blue C Sushi has become a popular, fast-growing Seattle restaurant chain.

We believe this technology is going to help us continue bringing customers in and enable us to grow more quickly.  James Allard Owner Blue C Sushi

For a sushi restaurant, which offers raw seafood and foods with subtle flavors and different textures, closely monitoring when and where food is put out for customers is critical. When Blue C opened its first restaurant in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood in 2003, maintaining high quality for the restaurant’s food was imperative, both to ensure a great customer experience and to meet health regulations.

The challenge was finding a way to keep food quality consistent. Blue C initially utilized a system that used bar codes on the bottom of plates and a scanner to read the codes. Allard says the system helped maintain the restaurant’s rule that a plate could not be on the conveyor belt longer than 55 minutes. But that was about all it could do.

“The problem,” Allard says, “is that we could only track the time when we put a plate on the conveyor belt, and that it was gone after a customer pulled it off the belt. The system could not provide important details, like what item was on a plate or which chef made it. Nor could we tell if a particular menu item—say, California rolls—was running short. We could not capture much in the way of useful operational data.”

The restaurant faced other issues as well. For example, sometimes during busy periods, miscalculations would be made on totaling the bills, resulting in over- or undercharging. It was also difficult to track inventories of what items were being consumed, and what were going to waste.

By the opening of the second restaurant in 2005, Allard approached Kikata, a Seattle-based solutions provider, and asked the company to look for technologies that could enhance the way Blue C Sushi managed food on its conveyor belts. Kikata evaluated ultra high frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, which relies on storing and remotely retrieving data using tiny devices called RFID tags.

At the time, RFID technology was popular in large organizations with complex logistical needs such as warehouses that ship and receive large quantities of goods every day. But it was cost-prohibitive for a smaller business like Blue C Sushi.

Solution

By 2006, RFID technology had evolved rapidly and the cost had dropped dramatically. Working with Kikata and Intermec, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, Blue C Sushi implemented a solution using BizTalk® RFID, a technology that is part of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006.

The Interface used by Blue C Sushi chefs helps them monitor inventory and identify which items are going on specific plates.

The Blue C Sushi solution includes a custom application—called the Kikata Ebisu Live Inventory Management—that Kikata created using BizTalk Server and BizTalk RFID. The application includes a touch-screen interface used by chefs at their workstations to designate which items are on their working trays. The workstations, which run on the Windows® XP Professional operating system, also provide a view of the running inventory of items as well as a list of items that need to be added to fulfill inventory requirements.

Other features of the Kikata solution include administrative tools, such as a menu input field, and a management function for establishing what information is coded into each RFID tag, such as plate color and food items on the plate. It also includes a tool for setting up the workstation configuration and an inventory management function that will allow Blue C Sushi to streamline its inventory purchasing and track inventory usage patterns. Additionally, there is a Table Talley function that helps staff count the number of plates chosen by customers. Information is stored on a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database. The BizTalk components and SQL Server run on the Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise Edition operating system.

Blue C Sushi worked closely with Intermec on three core hardware components—including UHF RFID tags—with another to be added later. Intermec worked with 3M to create tags that adhere firmly to the bottom of the plates and can withstand the rigors of daily restaurant activities, including hot dishwashing cycles.

Intermec also created custom RFID radio antennas that are fitted into the chefs’ cutting boards that work in conjunction with the IF5 fixed-mount RFID readers—small boxes that read and filter information from passing RFID tags. The IF5 devices are carefully calibrated so that they only pick up signals from plates that are in their immediate vicinity; this helps prevent false or duplicate data readings caused by other signals. After the initial solution is in place, Blue C Sushi also plans to give small mobile scanners to staff members so that they can tally the plates that have been chosen by customers.

Design of the solution began in the fourth quarter of 2006. The solution is scheduled for full deployment in May 2007. Once the solution has been in operation for several months, Blue C Sushi plans to perform business intelligence tasks on the data captured during daily operations.

Benefits

The solution provides Blue C Sushi with a way to solve several business issues: delivering enhanced quality control; helping chefs to more closely monitor the timing and contents of plates put on the belts; and providing real-time inventory tracking and a platform for future capabilities.

Food freshness isn’t the only benefit that this technology will deliver. We are also counting on it to improve accuracy when a staff member rings up a customer’s bill, which is going to enhance our customer service.  James Allard Owner Blue C Sushi

Enhanced Quality Control

Allard says that the workstations views are ideal for helping the chefs keep track of what food items are going on the conveyor belt, which in turn helps them maintain higher quality control over the food being served to customers.

“With the BizTalk RFID–based Kikata solution, we can do so many things that we could not do in the past,” he says. “Before putting a plate on the belt, a chef can associate the plate with a particular menu item. Then the Intermec readers track everything that is on the belt, at any moment. The chefs not only know exactly what’s on a plate, they know how long it’s been on the belt, and exactly when it is taken off by a customer.” This precision assists the chefs in keeping better track of inventory as well.

“Because the system knows what’s on a plate and when a plate is removed by a customer, the system can send an alert to the chefs when inventories are running low,” Allard says. “Say a chef starts by making 10 California rolls, and within 20 minutes of putting them out, 8 are taken. The system gives the chef a heads-up that it’s time to make more. It helps the chefs focus more on making good food and less on keeping track of inventory.”

Better Customer Service

When Blue C opened its first restaurant, part of the appeal of the kaiten sushi concept was that it simplified the process of charging customers for what they have eaten. With the Kikata solution, it becomes more accurate—a key to providing even better customer service.

“Food freshness isn’t the only benefit that this technology will deliver,” Allard says. “We are also counting on it to improve accuracy when a staff member rings up a customer’s bill, which is going to enhance our customer service.”

He says that after the initial RFID solution is established, the restaurant will implement the Intermec IP4 handheld RFID scanning devices. A staff member waves the device’s wand at the stack of plates that a customer has chosen, and the bill is automatically totaled.

“This prevents server staff mistakes such as overcharging, which upsets the customer, or undercharging, which costs us profits,” Allard says.

Strong Platform for Enhancing Business

Another advantage of the solution is the establishment of the Microsoft Application Platform that can deliver other capabilities that the restaurant did not have in the past.

“The solution will help us in our expansion, because it will be easier to bring new chefs into the company,” Allard says. “It takes a lot of skill to be a master sushi chef, not only in preparing food, but also in supervising other chefs. With the information that we’re able to gather through the system, we think there are many ways for us to accelerate the learning and training curves for new chefs.”

He adds that Blue C Sushi also intends to exploit the business intelligence capabilities once the solution has captured several months’ worth of data. “A significant motivation for this undertaking is the ability for us to mine the wealth of data we will capture about our own operational performance and our customers’ choices. We fully intend to drive future decisions based on the analysis of this business intelligence.

“This technology will improve our understanding of what customers want, and what items are popular at particular times or on specific days of the week,” he says. “It will greatly improve how we plan for and order food. It will help us to centralize the ordering of food from one location, while helping us reduce waste. We believe this technology is going to help us continue bringing customers in enable our business to grow more quickly.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Kikata products and services, email innovate@kikata.com or visit the Web site at:
www.kikata.com

For more information about Intermec products and services, call (425) 348-2600 or visit the Web site at:
www.intermec.com

For more information about Blue C Sushi products and services, call (206) 633-3311 or visit the Web site at:
www.bluecsushi.com

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:
www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. 

Document published April 2007