Taco Bell scheduled crews with OR, saving over $53 million in labor.

In 1988 Taco Bell launched a value menu and free drink refills, which raised traffic and forced a cheaper, more efficient operating model.

The company built an integrated labor-management system: forecasting to predict customer arrivals, simulation to find the labor a store needs, and optimization to schedule and allocate crew to minimize payroll.

Across roughly 6,490 US locations with about $4.6 billion in yearly sales, the models saved over $53 million in labor cost through 1997.

Combine demand forecast and crew schedule into one model

A value menu raised traffic and labor cost together

Forecast arrivals to know when to staff the store

Simulation set the service level a store should hit

Optimization assigned crew to the minimum payroll

When a strategic move raises volume, the labor plan has to be rebuilt around predicted traffic; integrating forecasting, simulation and optimization controls cost without cutting service.

The labor-management system became the model Taco Bell used nationwide to keep its value strategy profitable, and it stands as a classic applied-OR workforce case.