Facility Planning- Kitchen Planning : 6th Semester

KITCHEN DESIGN AND PLANNING

Introduction:  A food facility is a complex organization performing specialized function in the manufacture, Sales , and services of food. The choice of equipment, the layout , and the physical factors supporting these function directly influence the success with which the facility operates. Cooking space should be designed scientifically to ensure maximum productivity, for it is the kitchen where the all important food is prepared and upon which all the revenue hinges. An orderly and logical study of the essential functions and the development of the facilities with maximum efficiency and high standard form the basis for layout planning. The needs, resources, and characteristics of a specific situation govern the functions to be performed. The essential functions, in turn influence the flow or sequence of operations, the equipment needed, and the space requirements. When the flow of work, the equipment and space as well as physical factors are considered together, the layout is largely determined. This chapter focuses on the designing aspects of a kitchen, with emphasis on elements that need to be considered while planning a food preparation facility.

Basis of physical layout : A kitchen plan or layout should be determined by the catering policy, even though a plan may often be limited by space available. The policy adopted, and the space and layout required for a kitchen to carry forward that policy, is affected by many factors such as the following

1.       Type of business

2.       Type of customer

3.       Seasonal pressures

4.       Possibility of expansions

5.       Type of meal

6.       Number of covers (guests)to be offered

7.       Timings of meals (will it be a lunch or dinner services, or day service)

8.       Cover turnover

9.       Type of equipments to be used

10.   Is allowance to be made for special functions?

11.   To what extent will ‘convenience’ foods be used?

12.   Total Floor space

13.   Position of windows, ventilation, drainage, water supply, etc.

14.   Type of service proposed – self service, cafeteria, waiter or waitress service.

Layout of kitchen

The term ‘layout‘ means positioning of work centers and their arrangement with respect to equipment and necessary services like drainage, fuel supply, etc. in the kitchen.

Key steps for designing a kitchen

The following are the main steps involved in designing a good kitchen.

1.       Determine a basic menu design or pattern.

2.       Estimate menu items to be prepared according to demand

3.       Consider food purchasing policies.

4.       Ascertain the size, number, the type of equipment needed to process the menu style and the type of dishes chosen.

5.       From the specification of equipment compute the amount of space required to house the equipment required.

6.       Determine layout equipment departmentally according to food flow analysis and frequency of use.

7.       The peak food purchasing requirement must be determined.

8.       Determine and allocate floor space required for refrigeration and dry store purpose as a ratio to total space available.

9.       Estimate the dinning room space by analyzing the peak patron loads and average seat turnover during these periods for any given restaurant.

10.   Allocate service area space within the kitchen by considering menu, the peak load requirements, guests ‘needs and type of service offered.

11.   Determine the number of employees needed and their distribution in various departments from study of hours of operation and peak production, and serving requirements.

12.   Calculate the amount of space needed for work and traffic aisles by studying equipment layout and employee duties.

Developing kitchen plans

Before any kitchen plan can be developed, it is important to flow four main steps discussed as under.

STEP 1

Formulate a list of activities that are to be performed in the kitchen. In the process of scheduling, the activities may be organized into a ‘production cycle’ which shows the sequence in which the listed activities are to be performed.

STEP 2

Each part of the production cycle is then broken up into jobs or tasks which need to be performed in a particular order to achieve the objective of food service establishments. For example, if the menu for a canteen consists of small cakes, hot and cold beverages, a plated meal and sandwiches, each activity can be broken down into specific tasks for every item on the menu.

STEP 3

 Once the tasks have been defined , one has to think of the simplest ways in which they can be performed.

STEP 4

The tasks are then arranged in a sequence so that one task can smoothly follow another to establish what is termed as work flow in any operation. In other words, the work planned to be in the domain of the kitchen space flows from one area of activity to another with the least expenditure of time and energy.

WORK AND METHOD STUDY

A layout is based on a good work flow from the receipts of raw materials at goods entry to the dishes finally brought by servers for the guests. Over familiarity with processing sometimes inhibits radical thinking.

FLOW OF WORK

Intelligent disposition of preparation machinery, sinks and work, benchmark and reduce the total daily kitchen mileage covered by foot and cut down unnecessary travelling by staff. Thus a perfect kitchen from this point of view is one in which the raw and cooked materials have minimum movements and only cover the same route once. When each section or parties is satisfactorily planned, they must be linked to comply as nearly as possible to the workflow.

This may seem simple but in many cases, the task involved modernizing an existing old kitchen or laying out a new kitchen within existing premises.

A well planned layout largely depends on the following requirements which if properly provided for established good basic kitchen conditions.

1.       Incoming supplies and raw materials (checking and weighing)

2.       Food storage

3.       Cooking

4.       Server arrangements

5.       Pan wash arrangements

6.       Crockery and cutlery wash up.

TRAFFIC LANES AND WORK AISLES

Adequate and properly devised traffic lanes and work aisles are indispensable to the achievement of satisfactory work flow that is in providing straight flow lines for the receipt, preparation and cooking of the product with minimum path crossing and back tracing.

GOODS RECEIVING FACILITIES

External space is needed for parking of delivery van. At goods entry, sufficient space is required for receiving and checking goods, to accommodate a weighing machine, checking table, stand up desk and delivered goods prior to storage. For a smaller kitchen, a separate space within the goods reception area should be provided for waste bins and empty containers. In large kitchens a separate room for waste may be required. The receiving area should also provide parking for hand trucks and trolleys.

STORAGE SPACE ALLOCATION

Various types of stores, for example- dry, vegetable, fruit, meat and cold storage of dairy and fish products are required in good kitchen .total storage space should not exceed one quarter of the kitchen area for storing of food and equipment .we can calculate a space required for a dry goods store on the basis of 8-10 % of total kitchen space.

LAYOUT OF COMMERCIAL KITCHENS

After developing the work places, determining the specific equipment to use, and finalizing the space requirements, the food facility consultant is ready to accomplish the layout phase of the planning process. Some of the equipment layouts for certain functions may already have been completed during the design of the work places. Now the designer will formalize them, first as sketches and ultimately in the form of blue prints.

The layout process may be described as two separate stages that occur at the same time. One stage deals with arrangements of individual pieces of equipments, work tables, sinks with a unit which comprise a functional area or a functional department i.e. one particular area may be developed for the function of Indian and Tandoor preparations, (or) Salad and Sandwich preparations, as a single unit.

The second stage of layout process involves arranging the functional areas into a total facility. E.g. the receiving, storing, pre-preparation, production, pot washing areas, and non-production areas such as rest rooms, offices are brought together to form the basic floor plan for the facility.

There may be some doubt as to whether these two stages of layout are done at the done at the same time. Even though the designer may be working on one stage or another at any given time, layout design must be considered in term of both stages. In essence, the layout of the total facility must be considered when laying out the component areas and vice-versa.

Concepts of Layout:

There are four concepts of layout for a kitchen plan, they are

·         Materials or products

·         Machines and equipments

·         Workers

·         Movement

1. Materials or products

·         The products should be designed for ease of production.

·         Raw materials used should require minimum number of processing steps

·         The layout should protect the material from detrimental factors such as moisture, dust, vibration and temperature changes

·         To provide flexible layout to handle change with product.

·         Material storage area should facilitate taking inventory

·         Provide facilities for storing waste and scrap materials.

2. Machines and equipments

·         The equipments provided in the layout should be united to the required processes.

·         Maximum use of the equipments should be planned.

·         Layout should provide for each operations of the equipment.

·         Layout should facilitate movement of mobile equipments.

·         Sufficient access space for equipment maintenance should be provided.

·         Proper ventilation and existing of equipment to be provided.

3. Workers

·         Layout should safeguard the workers by eliminating hazards.

·         Adequate light should be provided

·         Proper exhaust system for fresh air should be provided.

·         Layout should be free of distracting activities.

·         Design of work place should correspond to height of the workers.

·         Layout should provide adequate work space.

4. Movement

·         Layout should provide easy movement of materials and workers.

·         Provide for smooth flow into and out of work place.

·         Layout should prevent back tracking.

·         Delays in movement of material should be minimized.

Layout configuration

The arrangement of equipment and work places for functional areas is usually in the form of a straight line or in combination and modifications of straight line configurations. The basic patterns that may be used include;

·         Single straight line arrangement:  This is the simplest of designs, but it is limited in the number of pieces of equipment or work places that can be arranged. The straight line arrangement may be placed along a wall or take the form of an island.

·         ‘L’ shaped arrangement:  This is a modification of the straight line arrangement to accommodate more equipments and work places, it is sometimes used where linear space is limited. The ‘L’ shaped configuration is suitable for separating two major groups of equipment. One group of equipment would be placed on one leg of the ‘L’, the other group for the second leg.

·         ‘U’ shaped arrangement:  ‘U’ shaped configuration is ideal for small areas where only one or two employees are working. One disadvantage of this configuration is that straight line flow through the area is not possible.

·         Parallel back to back arrangement:  This configuration is an arrangement of two parallel lines where the backs of the equipment and/or work places on each line are adjacent to each other. This arrangement centralizes the utility lines required for the equipment. Sometimes a short wall is constructed in between the two rows of equipment, in which case provision for cleaning and maintenance should be provided.

·         Parallel face to face arrangement:  This arrangement utilizes two straight lines of equipment and work places where the front face each other and are separated by an aisle space. This is very common configuration that can be used in many areas of facility. This configuration requires two separate utility lines for equipment as compared to the single utility line used in the parallel back to back arrangement.

The final arrangement for most facilities is usually composed of a combination of configuration of equipment and work places. Only the smallest of operations would use a single configuration of the layout facilities.

After arriving at the total area requirement for the main kitchen the following is the estimated percentage of the production/space for functional areas.

Functional areas                                                         Space allotted %

·         Receiving                                                                    5

·         Food storage                                                               20

·         Pre-prepation                                                              20

·         Cooking                                                                       12

·         Baking                                                                         10

·         Pot wash- KSD                                                             5

·         Traffic aisles                                                               16

·         Garbage- wet/dry                                                       5

·         Employee facilities                                                     5

·         Miscellaneous                                                             2

 Exercise : DRAW A SAMPLE KITCHEN LAYOUT PLAN FROM YOUR CLASS ROOM NOTEBOOK.

PLANNING OF VARIOUS SUPPORTING SERVICES

Pot and Pan Washing:

The pot and pan washing function is also preferably done in a separate area instead of combining it with other areas as some small operations may be inclined to do. The basic pot and pan washing function can be handled with the three compartment sink and drain boards, sufficient space for storing the soiled utensils have to be provided.

  In some operations, a large storage area for soiled utensils may be required because they are not washed as soon as they are received. This occurs when the same personnel who wash dish, also wash the pots and pans. Pot washing machine is considered for large food facility if they can be economically justified.

  A pot wash area is suppressed by 6” than the regular floor level of the kitchen, to avoid the water flowing into the main kitchen area .Heavy jet washers with water at a temperature of 88 degrees is used to wash pots because they easily remove the dirt and fat and  make cleaning easy. Since the pot wash area becomes very messy with waste food and fat, anti- skid tiles are recommended for the floor and white glazed tiles on the three side walls up to 8 feet height. A minimum area of 10’ x 10’ is required.

Wet Grinding Area :

In India wet grinding area is considered to be one of the supporting services to the main kitchen. There will be a minimum of two wet grinders in any small hotels, so that there is a stand by in case of breakdown. Wet grinders are tailor made and are of different capacities. The ideal functional area required for a wet grinding is 10’ x 4’. The area has to have anti- skid tiles for the floor and glaze tiles on the wall to maintain hygienic conditions.

Chef’s Cabin :

The chef’s cabin has to be ideally located, so that, he has a clear view of the entire kitchen. In some organizations and some hotels the Chef’s cabin is being utilized to store the imported stock of ingredients  like spices, wine, etc. Ideally 10’ x 10’ is required for the Chef’s cabin.

ALSO WRITE ABOUT STAFF FACILITIES, MAINTENANCE ETC.

DEVELOPING SPECIFICATIONS FOR VARIOUS KITCHEN EQUIPMENTS

STANDARD :

After determining the type and capacity of the equipments required for the particular kitchen, the next phase involves selecting the specific characteristics that are desired. Factors such as

·         Materials

·         Construction Techniques

·         Special Features

·         Maintenance Consideration , are evaluated.

STAINLESS STEEL :

Stainless steel is an alloy containing minimum amount of chromium and nickel and maximum amount of other alloying elements such as manganese, silicon and carbon. Its use in kitchen equipments is based on the following characteristics :-

·         High corrosion resistance

·         High strength

·         Hardness

·         Durability

·         Abrasion resistance

·         Ease of maintenance

TYPES :

 Kitchen equipments   manufacturers and fabricators select from the stainless steel refer to have type 304 and 302 ( Food Grade). These stainless steel sheets produced in India, according to the standards of Steel Authority of India that controls the amount of alloying materials.

 The corrosion resistance of stainless steel is attributed to the addition of chromium to the alloy. Nickel lowers the thermal conductivity of the alloy and increases its coefficient of expansion, allowing it to be formed into various shapes more easily. The amount of carbon is restricted so that the alloy can be welded without forming chromium carbide, which lowers corrosion resistance.

      Stainless steel is produced in sheets, plates , bars, wires , pipes and tubing.

FINISH:

A number of degrees of finishing are available in SS. There are 8 designated types of finishes. They are achieved by standard guiding, polishing and buffing. The finish used for surfaces that are in direct contact with food or is exposed is standard polish number 4.

THICKNESS:

The standard wire guage (SWG) usually designates metal thickness. Typical Guage numbers of metals used for kitchen equipments range from 6 to 24 ( 6 is the thickest and 24 is the thinnest)

GALVANISED STEEL

Coating the steel with a layer of zinc produces galvanized steel. The preferred method of producing galvanized steel is by electroplating, which gives the best bond between the steel and zinc. The quality of galvanized steel is dependent upon the thickness of the zinc coating.

Galvanized steel can be satisfactorily used for kitchen equipments, where there is no food contact or where abrasion is not evident. Sinks, tables, counters, shelves, racks are manufactured with galvanized steel framework.