DALLAS–Logile, Inc. today announced a partnership with PDQ Restaurants to improve the drive-thru experience at their current restaurants as well as their restaurants of the future. PDQ, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, operates 58 restaurants across Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey and New York.
In addition to serving fresh, affordable food, hospitality is at the core of PDQ’s restaurant experience. In the spring of 2020, social distancing guidelines placed restrictions on indoor dining. In response, PDQ extended service to its valued guests by offering online ordering with curbside pickup and launching a mobile order app and loyalty program this April.
Like other fast-casual restaurants, PDQ has seen a dramatic increase in demand for drive-thru service. The restaurant’s goals are to decrease drive-thru queue lengths, improve wait times for guests, and maintain the strong focus on hospitality present in its dine-in service.
Kep Sweeney, president of PDQ Restaurants said, “The COVID pandemic put significant demand on our drive-thru processes. To emphasize our commitment to providing our guests exceptional service, we sought a partner to provide us with new ideas and concepts to help us improve our current way of doing things. As we talked with others in the QSR industry, Logile was highly recommended for their experience and knowledge in this area.”
Logile’s Operational Excellence team leveraged a variety of industrial engineering approaches to assess drive-thru experience at a variety of PDQ locations. The main objectives of the engagement were to:
- Measure and analyze PDQ’s drive-thru service from the guest point of view
- Identify bottlenecks and opportunities at existing units
- Improve speed of service and guest engagement
- Explore innovative approaches to enhance the guest experience
To evaluate the complete guest perspective, Logile studied the total journey time from the time guests entered and exited the queue. This allowed PDQ to understand how frequently guests were leaving the queue during peak hours, and generally how long guests wait before abandoning the line.
In partnership, Logile and PDQ explored new drive-thru strategies to increase throughput capacity and decrease guests leaving the queue. As the current drive-thru strategy was analyzed, Logile focused on quick wins by optimizing and balancing workload across all the drive-thru stations. Logile’s industrial engineers leveraged the data collected to develop simulations of current and future state. The simulation-driven strategy was leveraged to quickly evaluate the impact of proposed scenarios on throughput rate and guest retention in the queue.
“PDQ has done a fantastic job creating a customer-focused restaurant experience. We were delighted to partner with them to reimagine the drive-thru experience from both the customer and employee point of view,” said Josh Ciampini, Logile’s Operational Excellence managing director.
About PQD Restaurants
Founded in 2011, award-winning PDQ – short for “People Dedicated to Quality” – offers chef-driven recipes and mindful ingredients typically found in a fine casual restaurant with the value, speed and convenience of the fast food and fast casual segment. Outback Steakhouse co-founder Bob Basham and MVP Holdings CEO Nick Reader are the two principal owners of PDQ. Beloved throughout the Southeast for its famous hand-breaded chicken tenders and signature sauces, PDQ also crafts delicious sandwiches, salads and hand-spun milkshakes fresh in store, every day. PDQ is committed to creating deep roots in its local communities and has given millions in dollars and in-kind donations to charities, schools, and organizations since its inception. On October 30, 2011, the original PDQ restaurant opened its doors in Tampa (FL) and the concept now has 58 locations in Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit https://www.eatpdq.com/.
About Logile, Inc.
Logile Operational Excellence consulting services help organizations optimize the workplace and streamline work methods using proven industrial engineering techniques and our experience across multiple industries, creating a culture of continuous improvement.
Logile is the leading retail store planning, workforce management and execution provider. Our proven AI, machine-learning technology and retail industrial engineering help accelerate ROI and operational excellence with improved performance and empowered employees.
Retailers worldwide rely on Logile’s intelligent, fully mobile solutions to boost profitability and competitive edge by delivering the best service at the optimal cost. From labor standards development and modeling, to forecasting, storewide scheduling and time and attendance, to task management, food safety and employee self-service—we transform retail operations. Gain the Advantage with The Logic of Labor.
Learn more: Logile.com. Beyond workforce management—complete store planning and execution solutions.
