Hello Alan, I'm glad that you appreciated the comments!
Traditional machines with traditional grinders, when operated by a Barista of reasonable competency, are significantly faster than most superautomatics and generally more reliable. Each step of automation that is added increases convenience and reduces the requirements of its operator, but will in some way sacrifice efficiency, reliability or performance -- I liken this to the comparison between a manual and automatic transmission. There is a balance somewhere along the technology curve that is better suited to each situation.
People tend to have strong feelings about the Swift, either for or against. I find myself somewhere in the middle, viewing it as a good tool in certain situations (perhaps yours) -- too lengthy a discussion for a Sunday morning. Keep in mind my previous comments regarding education and cleaning for the superautomatic, as many apply directly to the Swift situation.
When totaling up the time necessary to complete each Ecolino cycle (grind, dose, tamp, extract, rinse, reset) and comparing to the hybrid traditional & Swift procedure (wipe portafilter basket, auto-grind / tamp, flush group head, extract, dump), I suspect that we'd be looking at about a dead heat. Perhaps someone at ESI has run the two side-by-side; I'll ask around.
I will estimate that a skilled Barista, however, working with traditional grinders could gain additional operational efficiencies in grinding, dosing and tamping at peak volumes that would noticeably increase serving speed versus the Swift. HOWEVER, such a situation would require a substantial focus on skills development and reinforcement throughout the life of your business.
The tradeoff is a matter of where you place your investment: in your people, your technology or at some point along the line in between -- the net cost result is probably about the same, at least in so far as the beverage is concerned. In those situations where a company's primary product is specialty coffee and they choose automation to prepare that product, the reasonable assumption is that automation is assisting unskilled labor (the "we can hire inexpensive labor to push buttons" approach); note that this statement exempts those situations where coffee is not a primary product, such as a restaurant or hotel, for example, where there may not be employees dedicated to the process of preparing and serving coffee. Hotels and restaurants are ideal places for superautomatic espresso machines and I wish that more would use them.
I believe and have personally experienced that paying a little more to hire a better caliber of employee, as would generally be suitable to learn and perform a specialty skill, brings additional benefits beyond the task at hand; though, in less tangible areas such as customer service and employee morale. Your people - whether button pushers or skilled Baristi - will be the face (or talking speaker box) of your business. It is my philosophy to prefer candidates that have the capacity to become a skilled worker under my direction, at which point I may as well train them properly; and as a result the automation becomes unnecessary -- a hindrance, even.
I believe that the larger coffee companies have found that it is difficult to meet the short term quarterly demands of Wall St. by paying the higher wages and offering the benefits and developmental opportunities that are necessary to attract retain suitable employees, as such human dividends that result are paid over a long duration of time and difficult to quantify on a balance sheet. It is indeed a Fast Food Nation (great book).
One final point: if you side with the traditional system, get a 3-group. The 2-group is nice, but during peak times you will benefit from the additional steam capacity and it's always nice to have an extra group head handy when you need it. The cost difference between the 2 & 3 is negligible, so I would only recommend the 2 group in situations where low volumes are anticipated or where counter top real estate is at a high premium.
Again, I wish you the best of success in your venture - please let me know where in the country you're starting up and I'll be sure to drop by when I come to your town.
Sincerely,
Andrew
