(During the next couple of days I’ll be posting items that caught my attention on the few days I had internet access. ) P.F. Chang’s has five locations in the Dallas area. Other chain restaurants have watched their business nosedive during the recession, but not Chang’s. The difference lies not in some grand strategy shift but in small, incremental improvements in efficiency, a process it learned by studying Japanese car manufacturers. Key paragraph:
…by focusing on process improvement rather than helter-skelter growth, it seems to be doing so again. Continuous improvement, the philosophy pioneered by Japanese companies such as Toyota in which managers and workers relentlessly seek out small modifications that add up to big profits, seems to be the recipe for success in 2009.
