Paced starts are only as good as the prep times behind them. A ribeye set at 11 minutes that really takes 13 will land two minutes after its fries, every time.
Step 1: Start with honest times
For each dish, at each station, write down how long it takes from the moment a cook starts it until it is ready to plate, not including the time it waits on the ticket. Use your experienced cooks’ estimates; they are usually close.
Step 2: Split the times that really differ
One number per dish is not enough when the dish changes:
- Doneness. Medium rare, medium and well done are different times.
- Size. A 24 oz is not a 12 oz.
- Sides cooked elsewhere. Fries ordered with a burger cook at the fry station as an item of their own, with their own time.
- Dishes that move. A dish that grills and then finishes at sauté needs a time for each stage.
- Things with nothing to cook. A ready-made sauce needs no time at all; it can go straight to the expo to be checked off.
Step 3: Measure real service
Times drift. Menus change, cooks change, equipment changes. The simplest measurement is the one your screens already collect: the time between a cook tapping START and DONE. Over a few days that gives an average, a typical time and a range for every dish.
Ignore runs that were not real: items started by an auto-start timer (nobody tapped Start) or left open and closed later.
Step 4: Update carefully
When a dish’s measured average stays well away from its set time over enough runs (three or more is a sensible minimum), change the time. Change it in steps rather than all at once, so one strange night does not swing the plan, and keep a record of what changed and when.
How PrepFlow does it
PrepFlow’s Learning page does steps 3 and 4 for you. It shows each dish’s runs, average, typical time and range, and either suggests a new time for you to apply or adjusts it automatically in small, capped steps. A station in learning mode paces nothing while it measures, so you can switch a new station on and let it learn its own times first.
Questions
What if I do not know my prep times?
Start with a reasonable guess per station, or let a station run in learning mode for a week: nothing is held or paced there, cooks tap Start and Done, and the measured times become your starting point.
Should prep times change automatically?
It is your choice. In PrepFlow, Suggest mode proposes new times for a person to apply; Auto mode changes them in small, capped steps (at most 20% at once, at most every 10 minutes). Every change is saved as a version.