Last month, my colleague Karen Vecchio and I joined 45 other business women for a tour of the Eli’s Cheesecake Factory in Chicago. The event was a part of TMA’s Women in Manufacturing series.
Eli’s Cheesecake has been a Chicago institution since 1940. It's the only operational facility for the company, with over 200 skus covering a vast selection of cheesecakes, pies, and other desserts. It became clear to me that the cheesecake business is more complex than one might imagine, and the company’s dedication to training and continuous improvement is a big reason why Eli's is the internationally recognized brand that it is.
We broke into two groups and ours started in the production area. It was amazing to see a line of workers stacking and icing a chocolate layer cake. One employee used a giant funnel-like machine to squirt a consistent amount of icing onto each layer and smooth it out. Then the next employee added another layer of cake, and so on, until the cake was stacked, iced and decorated. The cakes were then transferred to racks and placed in the freezer to set. It was fascinating to see the precision that the workers exercised with their tasks. We learned that every employee of Eli’s is trained in ALL areas of production. Even our tour guide said that upon being hired for the promotional side of the company, he had to take a couple of days at each station, learning the processes.
We then met for a discussion with Jolene, the Operations Manager. She was gracious enough to share her history with the company and share the key aspects of production. You could tell by her passion that she truly loves the company, the people, and the environment. I was particularly interested in her description of the company’s quality programs. Jolene said that Eli’s currently has 26 quality programs running concurrently. It’s no surprise that quality and food safety are the most important considerations in this type of business. In fact, ALL employees spend at least 30% of their time on activities to maintain high quality and safety, and they deploy enterprise resource planning for tracking production, waste, and inventory.
Later, we were each given a small station to ice and decorate our own cheesecakes. Going into the event, I figured that we would probably get a small sample or even a slice of cheesecake. Let me tell you, they certainly do not skimp on size! Each of us was given an entire 8-inch cheesecake to decorate and take home.
I look forward to participating in other Women in Manufacturing events through TMA… and enjoying more cheesecake!
