Timo for Silver Light — Unified Restaurant Operations

Modernizing a Beloved Teahouse—Without Losing the Ritual

Silver Light is a Guangzhou icon with daily queues and multi-generation staff. We modernized operations without diluting hospitality: one iOS suite for FOH/BOH/management that instruments performance, eliminates back-channel favors, and digitizes approvals—while protecting rituals and service cadence.

Fragmented Tools and Back-Channel Favors Eroded Speed and Trust

Siloed apps and paper logs encouraged workarounds. Attendance, procurement, scheduling, and guest care lived apart—so rush-hour overrides crept in, trust eroded, and managers lacked a single source of truth.

• Fragmented workflows: clock-ins, orders, approvals, and queueing lived in different apps—or on paper—creating inconsistent records and training drag.
• Low accountability: favors and overrides slipped through without shared audit trails or explicit role contracts.
• Rush-hour friction: teams needed one-handed flows and glove-friendly targets that tolerate spotty Wi-Fi and mixed literacy.
• Role ambiguity: hosts, kitchen leads, and managers lacked a clear fairness contract—what counts, who approves, and how disputes are resolved.

A Governed Mobile Suite That Keeps the Restaurant Humming

We replaced patchwork tools with a governed, role-based platform. One app handles clock-in/out, queueing, ordering, incident capture, and approvals; leadership gets live views of queues, leave balances, procurement spend, and exceptions—with exportable logs for finance and audit.

• Unified experience: one app covers check-ins, queue management, ordering, and approvals—cutting workarounds and shortening new-hire ramp.
• Transparent audit trails: every action has timestamp, owner, and rationale, shrinking disputes and eliminating side-channels.
• Role-based workflows: people see only what they need; accountability is explicit from day one.
• Personalized dashboards: “My Home” surfaces tasks, KPIs, and shortcuts by role to keep attention on guests and SLAs.

Serving Front-of-House, Back-of-House, and Management

FOH hosts and servers run the floor on iPhone; BOH leads review prep, incidents, and procurement; managers oversee schedules, approvals, and audits. GMs, finance, and franchise owners use cross-store dashboards on tablet/web. Tailored permissions speed onboarding, reduce errors, and keep every action traceable.

Collaborative Design, Governance, and Iteration

• Aligned stakeholders: on-site workshops mapped workflows, closed policy gaps, and tied design bets to revenue and ops KPIs.
• Observed live service: shadowed peak dim-sum rushes to capture constraints (one-handed use, multilingual crews, unstable connectivity).
• Iterated in the field: piloted rapid mobile prototypes in-store; real incidents and queue spikes drove revisions and acceptance.
• Scaled the system: shipped a modular UI kit, governance rules, and playbooks so engineering and ops could extend safely across stores.

Timekeeping & Leave

Staff clock in/out and log breaks with a tap—tuned for one-handed use at peak. Overtime and anomalies surface before payroll. Leave and early-departure requests route with full context so managers approve quickly and disputes disappear.

Operations Reporting

Incident capture is standardized—table, dish, severity, owner, photos, and resolution are required—so issues are comparable across stores and shifts.

Workforce & Scheduling

Managers see annual and medical leave balances, approve swaps ahead of rush, and edit profile details—with an audit stamp on every change.

Procurement & Governance

Departments compile itemized orders by category and vendor; the system aggregates quantities and prices before routing for approval.

Admin Panel

Tiered access protects sensitive actions. Managers update employee profiles, manage promotions and pay changes, and view HR history with mandatory reason codes and audit logs.

Queue Management

The queue & seating console tracks SLAs by party size; one-tap actions (seat, call, re-queue) keep lines moving during weekend peaks.

Ordering

Table view, guest profile, and the live order sit side by side. The floor map shows reservations and real-time table status; a timeline coordinates servers and prep to reduce delays. All ordering actions are permissioned and audited to cut unnecessary comps and voids.

Identity and Components That Carry Trust

We paired Silver Light’s heritage jade with a modern UI kit—cards, list rows, queue chips, and approval banners. Components encode roles and localization, meet kitchen-lighting contrast targets (WCAG AA), and support light/dark modes without breaking brand.

Operational Wins & Fairness, Measured

• Efficiency gains: ops hours ↓25% as handoffs fell and staff stayed with guests.
• Faster service: median queue wait ↓18% via one-tap actions and SLA visibility.
• Fewer disputes: approval disputes ↓90% as role-based audit trails replaced overrides.