Flow and kitchen design

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Let’s take a look at some common food preparation flow plans that you will discover within the kitchen. The most basic and desirable flow plan is the straight line, also known as assembly line flow. Materials are constantly moving from one procedure to another in a straight line. This type of style minimizes recoil; Saves prep time and confusion about what leaves the kitchen area and what comes back.

The straight-line arrangement works great for small installations because it can be placed against a wall and adapted to the tasks of cooks. Where there is not enough space to organize food preparation in a straight line, a popular and efficient option is parallel flow. There are four variations of the parallel style:

1. Back to back. The equipment is arranged inside a long center counter or island in two straight lines that run parallel to each other. Sometimes a four or five foot room divider or a low wall is placed between the two lines. It is primarily a safety precaution, keeping noise and clutter to a minimum and preventing liquids spilled from one side from spreading to the other. However, placing a wall here also makes cleaning and sanitation very difficult. Back-to-back layout centralizes plumbing and utilities;

You may not need to install as many drains, sinks, or outlets as both sides of the counter can share the same. A semi-detached arrangement in which the pass-through window is parallel to (and behind one of) the production sites is sometimes recognized as a California-style kitchen. When the pass-through window is located perpendicular to the production line, it could be called a European-style kitchen area style. The benefit of the European style is that every chef in the line can see the progression of various dishes that make up a table order.

2. Face to face. In this kitchen area configuration, a central hallway separates two straight lines of equipment on either side of the room. Sometimes the hallway is wide enough to add a straight line of artboards between the two rows of equipment. This configuration works well for high volume power facilities like schools and hospitals, but does not benefit from single source utilities. Although it is an excellent design for worker supervision, it forces people to act with their backs to each other, in effect, separating the cooking of the food from the rest of the dispensing procedure. Therefore, it is most likely not the best style for a restaurant.

3. L-shape Wherever space is not enough for a straight or parallel arrangement, the L-shaped kitchen design is well suited to access various equipment groups and is suitable for service restaurants table. It gives you the ability to place more equipment within a smaller room. You will often find an L-shaped design in dish washing areas, using the washing machine placed in the center corner of the L.

4. U-shape. This arrangement is rarely used, but is ideal for a small room with one or two employees, such as a salad dressing area or pantry. A bar on the island, for example, those in the TGI Friday restaurants, is an additional example of the U-shape in the show. There are also circular and square kitchen area designs, but their limited flow patterns make them impractical. Avoid wasting space if you can by making your kitchen area rectangular, with your entrance on one of the longest walls to save steps.

The more foodservice establishments you visit, the more you will realize that the back of the house is truly a separate and distinct entity from the rest of the business, with its own peculiar difficulties and unique solutions.

Proper flow planning sometimes means dividing each function of the kitchen area into an apartment of some sort, after which deciding how those departments should interact with each other. They must also interact using the other external departments of the facility: their dining room, bar, cashier, etc. A great way to start the design process, both for the business as a whole and for the kitchen, is to create a bubble diagram. Each region (or workstation) is represented as a pencil-drawn circle or “bubble” within the location that you have decided would be the most logical for that function. If two different workstations are going to share some equipment, you can let the sides of their circles intersect slightly, to indicate where the shared equipment could best be located.

The finished diagram will appear abstract, but the exercise allows you to visualize each action center and think about its needs in relation to the other centers. You can also place a kitchen in a diamond configuration, locating the cooking area at one point on the diamond shape and other crucial areas in relation to it at other points. Note that this design minimizes confusion (and accidents) with a separate kitchen entrance and exit. This allows the people who carry the tables to deliver the dirty dishes to the laundry area without having to walk through the entire kitchen to do so.

An alternative to drawing diagrams is to list each execution center and then list any other work centers that need to be placed next to it. Rather, list any performance centers that shouldn’t be next to it. For example, having the ice maker and ice storage bin adjacent to the frying and broiling center is most likely not a good idea.

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