In a busy kitchen, dishes in the same course often have different prep times. Item timing allows restaurants to set specific prep times for each item, enabling the KDS to display a countdown and synchronize cooking. This ensures that all items in a course are ready at the same time, improving efficiency and coursing.
Before you can use item timing, it needs to be set up. Learn how to set up item timing here.
Once it's been set up, it will work as seen below:
When items with different prep times are ordered for the same course, the item with the longer prep time will be greyed out and have an hourglass icon next to it. This indicates that it takes less time to prepare than the items that are not greyed out and the cook should wait to start cooking it.
There are a few differences when it comes to tickets with item timing:
- The ticket header will be grey until the cook marks that they've started preparing it
- There will be an hourglass icon next to the items that take less time to prepare
The order of the items on the ticket will also be different:
- Items without prep times or that take 0 minutes to prep will appear on the top
- The item with the longest prep time will appear next
- Remaining items will appear in descending order, with the item taking the least time to prepare at the bottom of the ticket
For example, in the ticket below chicken wings doesn't have a prep time configured so it appears at the top. The medium bacon cheeseburger has the longest prep time so it will appear next, and then the rare bacon cheeseburger which takes the least time. The rare burger is also greyed out and has an hourglass next to it.
Once the cook marks that they are working on the item that takes the longest, the timer will start on the items that take less time. This is a countdown to when the cook should start preparing the item. A timer at the top of the ticket will also start now that includes the time the entire ticket should take
When the timer reaches 1 minute left, it will turn yellow as a warning that the items should all be ready soon
If the timer reaches zero, it will turn red and start counting up, letting the cook know how long ago the ticket should have been ready