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Pinkberry: Now Swirling in B-City!
DCSN 200
Group Members:
Nadia El Jichi
Samah El Sayed Ahmad
Saly El Wazze
Mona Zahran

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Pinkberry, established in 2005, is an international frozen yogurt franchised company
centered on high quality products and exemplary customer service. In this project, our group
studies the service process and the operations at the ABC Achrafieh location.
Pinkberry’s Mission:
“Pinkberry’s mission is to provide the customers with the highest quality yogurt. The
mission further entails on the company’s continuous value propositions, to perfect the desired
reach to the consumer segments, by depicting that it shall engage on offering the best that their
consumer may expect in different geographical locations of the company’s business” (SAP AG,
2010).
Pinkberry’s Strategy:
Pinkberry’s strategy to penetrate the market is product differentiation!

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Capacity Planning:
Capacity planning is a very critical part of any F&B related business operation as it affects the
waiting time of the customers and therefore their level of satisfaction. For the purpose of this
project, our group studied the process at Pinkberry.The process is depicted in the following
FLOWCHART! The data collected is during the peak time which is Saturdayat 3:00 pm after
lunch where customers would probably be searching for a grab and go dessert! It may be useful
to mention that Pinkberry services its customers on a first come first served basis.
Wait in Line
1.42
1.43
2.10
2.35
2.54
2.00
2.06
2.00
2mins
Sample
0.90
0.00
0.40
0.40
0.30
0.90
0.62
0.40
0.5mins
Order
2.06
1.15
2.05
1.44
0.22
0.48
1.03
2.09
1.35mins
Pay
1.07
2.75
1.46
1.45
0.36
0.16
0.90
1.03
1.15mins
Sample
Wait in Line
0.5 mins
2 mins
Pay
1.15 mins
Order
1.35 mins
Pinkberry uses an assembly line process. In other words, the employees work in a sequential
manner to complete a placed order in a timely manner.The customer waits in line for his turn ,

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then he either tries a sample or orders depending on whether the customer is a first timer or not.
If the customer is a first timer, then he’ll try a sample of the existing flavors and then order. After
the customer places his order, he’ll pay.
The flowchart illustrates that waiting in line is the bottleneck. Thus, the process time of
the system is 2 mins. The capacity of the system is ½=0.5 customers/min. The process cycle time
is 2+1.35+1.15=5 min. Our group had a small chat with the manager concerning the bottleneck
of the process at Pinkberry. The manager rest assured that the queue has long been an issue for
almost every Pinkberry shop around the globe. The long queue has certainly some side effects
regarding the demand for the product, profitability, and customer satisfaction. The customer
might drop out of the long queue and attempt to search for another refreshing grab and go
dessert. The manager informed the group that Pinkberry’s operations management team are
always coming up with new ideas to reduce the losses due to the long queue, and their strategies
have proved to be efficient. One particular customer at Pinkberry in Kuwait decided not drop out
of the long queue and he ended up waiting in line for an hour and a half. That’s how tempting
Pinkberry is! The efficient factor in the process is that there are two cash registers. This helps the
flow of the orders and service not to get bottled up at the register, which is the longest process
for some customers. We observed that the process time was most efficient when one employee
was running the register and ringing up customers after their orders were made. This also
allowed for more space for the other workers to in the service line.

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Recommendations:
After analyzing the service operations of Pinkberry, we have several recommendations
for how this particular store could improve its process performance. One recommendation is to
expand the store by acquiring the shop next door. This would open up the space to accommodate
the large lines, more seating and space behind the counter. This could be implemented in the
long run to attract customers. Another recommendation is that during peak hours, employees
should form more of an assembly line to make the process faster and prevent employees from
bumping into each other when running from station. This will also result in less of a wait time
for customers, which is important to overall customer satisfaction. We recommend that during
peak times with long wait lines there be an employee handing out samples on a tray to allow
quicker customer decisions during order time, which will help reduce the overall cycle time.
Overall the process efficiency becomes a concern during peak times and finding a method to
better service customers during these times will increase customer satisfaction and decrease
employee stress as well as increase profitability. Another recommendation would be to create an
IPhone app, that would probably service large groups where they can preorder their frozen
yogurt via iPhone app and thus are immediately serviced when they arrive at the shop, where
they don’t have to wait in line for each one of the group to get his frozen yogurt, thus reducing
the time and maximizing efficiency.

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Quality Management:
Now that we have analyzed the capacity of the frozen yogurt shop, we turn to the quality of the
shop. Quality, is a critical part for any F&B business. Concerning Pinkberry, it might be useful to
mention that Pinkberry is NSF Certified.
Quality Control+ Continuous Improvement:Pinkberry is currently implementing quality control
by continuous employee training. The steps or the tactics each employee should follow are listed
below. Each employee is assessed based on his ability to meet the job requirements. Moreover,
the employees are required to attend a workshop in order to ensure that the employee is fit for the
job as well to enhance the Pinkberry experience. Concerning the inputs of the production
process, which are the toppings (raspberries, strawberries, Oreos…)and milk, they are ordered on
a daily basis to ensure freshness of the product. Another way to implement continuous
improvement and quality control is through comment cards. The comment cards take into
consideration suggested improvements and the manager tends to compensate the customers for
any bad experience at Pinkberry by inviting him/her back to the shop to have some swirly
goodness and its Pinkberry’s treat!
Pinkberry employees follow certain tactics:
Step 1: Greeting the customer:
Smile + eye contact
Welcome the customer to the shop+ introduce yourself
Keep groups together
Find out if the customer have been in before

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Step 2: Inform
Explain how to pinkberry- “Pinkberry is made up of real nonfat milk and yogurt. We
have 6 delicious flavors. Let me get you some samples for you to taste first:
Step 3:Flavor
Help customer choose a flavor to sample(Always start with original flavor+ recommend
your personal favorite flavor)
Continue sampling until the customer finds a flavor to love (even if it’s a flavor for next
time!) KEPP CUSTOMER HAPPY!
Step 4: Size
Determine the best size. “We have 3 sizes small, medium, and large!”
Take yogurt order for entire party
Encourage customers to begin choosing toppings “I’ll go swirl those pinkberrys, and you
can check out the topping bar!”
Step 5: SWIRL
Handle cup properly by base (Finger are underneath the rim, not touching sides of lip)
Ensure compressor is running before running
Beautiful stage+ proper number of rings (Proper number of rings to ensure accurate
weight; stage leaves room for topping without gaps)

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Day
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
#of Complaints
3
2
6
5
4
7
3
Our Upper Control Limit for the number of complaints is: 4.28 +3√4.28= 10.48
Our Lower Control Limit is: 4.28-3√4.28=0 while C-bar is: 4.28.
C-CHART
12
11
UCL
10
9
8
7
6
5
C- BAR
4
3
2
1
LCL
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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Reasons:
Long waiting lines:
o Slow production rate or the speed of preparing the product is not fast enough.
o The availability of only one service station to prepare the product.
o The lack of supplies or toppings on the yogurt which delayed the production
process.
o The inefficiency of employees to commit to the proper order of the production
process.
Employees’ attitude:
o An employee might have been rude to customers during those weeks; the
reduction of the number of complaints the week later (week 7) might be because
that employee was absent.
o Too many employees than necessary could create crowdedness and attitude
problems among employees.
Recommendations:
Looking at the c-chart we can notice an increasing trend in weeks 2 through 6. This situation
is highly alarming since we are dealing with complains and it would be highly recommended
to engage in an investigation or an inspection.
Appropriate solutions are those that accommodate the proper cause.
If the problem is long waiting lines then solutions could be such as offering samples to
costumers while waiting for their products. Pinkberry has tried this solution before and it has
proven to have a positive impact. Therefore this strategy is very reliable. Or a simpler

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solution might be to increase the number of employees to increase the speed rate of
production and eliminate delay. If the reason is employee attitude then fewer employees can
be employed or some can be present only on part-time schedules. Another solution could also
be rewarding the employees thus creating an incentive to increase their
productivity(Employee of the Month awards…)A different creative solution would be to
suggest to customers to write their opinions and solutions at the end of the complaints card.

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References:
SAP AG. (2012,November). Pinkberry. Retrieved from
http://www.nextwave-erp.com/CS_Pinkberry.pdf