Productivity in nutrition programs for the elderly that utilize an assembly-serve production system

Observations of labor activities of workers performing foodservice functions were made in eight senior centers at 5-minute intervals for 3 consecutive days. On-site preparation was limited to rethermalization of frozen entrees and portioning of bulk-delivered items. Time spent was assigned or allocated to either congregate or home-delivered meal service on the basis of number of meals served. Time in each component of direct work, indirect work, and delay was divided by meals served to provide the productivity ratio, labor minutes per meal. Comparisons were also made on the basis of number of meals served. An average of 12.78 minutes per meal was used to serve congregate meals and 21.05 minutes per meal for home-delivered meals. Two of the eight centers differed significantly in time used for direct work and total work to serve congregate-meal participants. There was no difference between centers in time used to serve homebound clients. The number of meals served did not influence productivity for either meal service site. These findings establish baseline data for the amount of time needed in one production system to serve meals to center participants and homebound clients. Managers of senior centers can use information about this food production and delivery system to make decisions about the most cost-effective method to provide meals.