Food Service Bussing System
Background
The brand Hospeco hired Trident Design to help them develop new offerings for their company. They specialize in public restroom and commercial cleaning products.
Design Opportunity
Hospeco offered minimal products in the restaurant category, and there also seemed to be room for improvement in the current process of cleaning food service spaces.
Strategy
Find out the needs of the various stakeholders in the food industry, observe current sanitation processes, find opportunities for new additions to Hospeco’s product line.
Goal
Improve the sanitation process for restaurant workers, while maintaining or improving cleanliness, and keeping the restaurant’s bottom line in mind.
Company
Trident Design
Team Members
Approximately 5
Contributions
Developed interview questions for various stakeholders
Conducted interviews and observation sessions
Interpreted stakeholder priorities
Compiled findings to present to client
Before being officially hired by the company, our design team gathered to brainstorm opportunities for product development. For more details on this initial brainstorm and another project that came out of it, see the Toilet Seat Covers project page.
Initial Research
Strategy: Observe bussing in a variety of restaurants and interview several people in the industry. Each team member had a connection in the food industry that we set up an interview with, or who connected us with someone else to interview.
Goal: To better understand the process of cleaning surfaces in a food service environment. Gain perspective on current sanitation methods and the driving forces behind stakeholder decisions.
Insights: From fine dining to fast casual, the same cleaning tools were used across the board - a bucket or spray bottle of sanitizing solution and a rag for wiping.
I created a list of interview questions with input from the team, and developed a slightly different set of questions for Operations Managers, Purchasing Managers, and Servers/Bussers. We interviewed a total of 7 stakeholders in 5 different food establishments. I attended most of the observation and interview sessions to collect data, sometimes alongside one other team member.
After our meetings, we realized that, from fine dining to fast casual, the same cleaning tools were used across the board - a bucket or spray bottle of sanitizing solution and a rag for wiping.
In our initial brainstorming session, our team felt excited about the possibility of a new tool to improve the cleaning experience. After talking to the stakeholders, we had to admit that reinventing the entire bussing system may be unrealistic, especially in terms of cost.
However, improving some of the commonly used components like buckets, rags and spray bottles seemed like a design opportunity.
I narrowed the observations and quotes we collected to 4 main concepts that we’d have to keep in balance during the development process: Hygiene, Efficiency, Perception and Cost.
Outcome
After meeting with Hospeco and delivering our findings, they agreed that the bussing tool concept may not be their greatest opportunity. They saw more potential in pursuing toilet seat cover and dispenser design improvements. Therefore, our company was not able to pursue the restaurant bussing system any further.