New Way To Fast Food

[Trausti]

McDonald's is striding into the 21st century with the rollout of the "Create Your Taste" touchscreen kiosks, on which custom burgers can be built as well as full-menu ordering. The kiosks are incredibly convenient and improve order accuracy, to which I can personally attest. Panera Bread has fully committed to the kiosk craze as well. The company's "Panera 2.0" initiative is in full swing. About 50% of company-owned stores already have the technology installed, and the remaining locations expect to have kiosks in place by the end of the year. Combining the kiosks with Panera's "MyPanera" rewards membership is an added bonus. "Beyond shorter lines and improved accuracy, customers love the fact that they can save those modifications as favorites or order from their history," says Blaine Hurst, Panera Chief Transformation & Growth Officer. And now, Wendy's has announced that it will make kiosks available in the later half of 2016.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fast-food-workers-becoming-obsolete-182914617.html

Neat! Shorter lines. More convenience. But this technology has been with us for a number of years. Wonder what is spurring the push for automation now?

 

[untermensche]

Whenever there is talk of automation it must be remembered that the direction of automation is under the control of those at the top.

Under no circumstances will automation be used to replace them.

It will mostly be used to replace low paying workers. But that is a choice, not the only direction automation could take.

 

[Jarhyn]

McDonald's is striding into the 21st century with the rollout of the "Create Your Taste" touchscreen kiosks, on which custom burgers can be built as well as full-menu ordering. The kiosks are incredibly convenient and improve order accuracy, to which I can personally attest. Panera Bread has fully committed to the kiosk craze as well. The company's "Panera 2.0" initiative is in full swing. About 50% of company-owned stores already have the technology installed, and the remaining locations expect to have kiosks in place by the end of the year. Combining the kiosks with Panera's "MyPanera" rewards membership is an added bonus. "Beyond shorter lines and improved accuracy, customers love the fact that they can save those modifications as favorites or order from their history," says Blaine Hurst, Panera Chief Transformation & Growth Officer. And now, Wendy's has announced that it will make kiosks available in the later half of 2016.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fast-food-workers-becoming-obsolete-182914617.html

Neat! Shorter lines. More convenience. But this technology has been with us for a number of years. Wonder what is spurring the push for automation now?

I don't know if you recall or not, but no, this technology hasn't been with us for years. Touch screen computing in the industrial durabilities necessary for these applications is quite young and only evolved after the advent and proliferation of moderate-life smart phone screens.

It's not because of people wanting real living wages. It's because of Gorilla Glass and the lessons learned in smart phone manufacture. Keep in mind these systems need to tolerate being banged on by kids and angry customers.

Anyone who has worked fast food intermittently between 2000 and 2007 can attest to the fact that every POS in that era using touch screens is a giant piece of shit.

Edit: not to mention the fact that most corporate point of sale machines are Linux based and use ancient software centralized from a server in the office. Oftentimes they are the same system used for time and payroll. There's a pretty big technological hurdle in developing the software and a larger hurdle in designing an interface customers can easily understand and select from.

Even after the hardware came available to do this, the systems would still need to be married, and the software would need to be developed. That can take years.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I look forward to touching people's boogers left on the screen while ordering a sodium-bacon Big Mac with extra cheese substitute.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Hey look everyone! A passive aggressive OP on raising the minimum wage, because people should just work for an unsustainable wage.

There has been an attempt to streamline processes in all industries to help reduce costs, in order to keep prices down. This isn't new. Grocery stores have had self-check outs for years now, well before minimum wage hikes. Unless you can show that these innovations lead to job cuts, instead of realigning the staff to improve customer service, you have little to work on here.

 

[Trausti]

Hey look everyone! A passive aggressive OP on raising the minimum wage, because people should just work for an unsustainable wage.

Then they should offer labor/skill commensurate with the wage they desire. Increasing the costs of anything effects the market; especially if that increase was by arbitrary decree. Or is it your experience that when the price of gas goes up people don't change their gas spending habits?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

So this IS about minimum wage and not customer-centered automation?

 

[Trausti]

I don't know if you recall or not, but no, this technology hasn't been with us for years. Touch screen computing in the industrial durabilities necessary for these applications is quite young and only evolved after the advent and proliferation of moderate-life smart phone screens.

Nah. The grocery store in my college town in the late '90s had touch screen for self-checkout. Though the visuals may be better now.

- - - Updated - - -

So this IS about minimum wage and not customer-centered automation?

Why not both? To get around higher labor costs the business introduces a technology to give the customer a better experience. Win-Win.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Hey look everyone! A passive aggressive OP on raising the minimum wage, because people should just work for an unsustainable wage.

Then they should offer labor/skill commensurate with the wage they desire. Increasing the costs of anything effects the market;

Of course increases in distribution leads to higher cost products. Of course, labor isn't the only thing going into the price of what Panera sells. Wasn't it something like a double quarter pounder (or was that the value meal?) would be 40 cents more if the minimum wage bumped to $12 or $15 an hour? Indicating the actual cost increase relative to the price of the product, wasn't that high.

especially if that increase was by arbitrary decree.

Well, adjusting for inflation and production, minimum wage should be around $20, I think.

 

[Jarhyn]

Hey look everyone! A passive aggressive OP on raising the minimum wage, because people should just work for an unsustainable wage.

Then they should offer labor/skill commensurate with the wage they desire. Increasing the costs of anything effects the market; especially if that increase was by arbitrary decree. Or is it your experience that when the price of gas goes up people don't change their gas spending habits?

Nope. Humans are not divisible into subunits of effort. One human-necessary task, given that you require of them the opportunity cost of having scheduling primacy and so edging them out of any competing schedule interests, requires support for one whole human, with all the care and maintenance necessary to support that human.

It doesn't matter if they work 20 hours a week or 40. If you need a human to do a task, you are on the hook to maintain the human doing the task.

If you can't keep the human alive and in in a, well, HUMANE living situation given your perceived value of their particular task, that isn't their problem, it is yours. At the end of the day you may take a loss among your workforce. Your costs may be higher, but it wasn't me or anyone else who decided you needed a human to do it. If it's that necessary, you hike the price of your products to reflect the necessary nature of taking care of the humans rather than working them into a grave.

 

[Derec]

Wendy’s Serves Up Big Kiosk Expansion As Wage Hikes Hit Fast Food

Labor costs are definitely responsible for this development. A company must compare total cost of these kiosks (development, purchase and operational) vs. cost of human cashiers and that calculation depends on the cost of these cashiers. And remember, NY has a special (higher) minimum wage for fast food workers only.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Then they should offer labor/skill commensurate with the wage they desire. Increasing the costs of anything effects the market; especially if that increase was by arbitrary decree. Or is it your experience that when the price of gas goes up people don't change their gas spending habits?

Nope. Humans are not divisible into subunits of effort. One human-necessary task, given that you require of them the opportunity cost of having scheduling primacy and so edging them out of any competing schedule interests, requires support for one whole human, with all the care and maintenance necessary to support that human.

It doesn't matter if they work 20 hours a week or 40. If you need a human to do a task, you are on the hook to maintain the human doing the task.

If you can't keep the human alive and in in a, well, HUMANE living situation given your perceived value of their particular task, that isn't their problem, it is yours. At the end of the day you may take a loss among your workforce. Your costs may be higher, but it wasn't me or anyone else who decided you needed a human to do it. If it's that necessary, you hike the price of your products to reflect the necessary nature of taking care of the humans rather than working them into a grave.

And 150-200 years ago 90% of the population was involved in agriculture, now it's 10%

It's interesting to compare retail stores in Asia compared to the US where labor is cheap, they have about 1 retail helper every few feet compared to the US's different system.

 

[Jayjay]

The real change happens when the cooks are automated. Then all you need is one or two people to run the entire restaurant (or none at all, but that'd be just a big vending machine really).

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Nope. Humans are not divisible into subunits of effort. One human-necessary task, given that you require of them the opportunity cost of having scheduling primacy and so edging them out of any competing schedule interests, requires support for one whole human, with all the care and maintenance necessary to support that human.

It doesn't matter if they work 20 hours a week or 40. If you need a human to do a task, you are on the hook to maintain the human doing the task.

If you can't keep the human alive and in in a, well, HUMANE living situation given your perceived value of their particular task, that isn't their problem, it is yours. At the end of the day you may take a loss among your workforce. Your costs may be higher, but it wasn't me or anyone else who decided you needed a human to do it. If it's that necessary, you hike the price of your products to reflect the necessary nature of taking care of the humans rather than working them into a grave.

And 150-200 years ago 90% of the population was involved in agriculture, now it's 10%

It's interesting to compare retail stores in Asia compared to the US where labor is cheap, they have about 1 retail helper every few feet compared to the US's different system.

They also probably work on commission, which retail in the United States has moved away from because it gave too much money to the workers.

 

[coloradoatheist]

And 150-200 years ago 90% of the population was involved in agriculture, now it's 10%

It's interesting to compare retail stores in Asia compared to the US where labor is cheap, they have about 1 retail helper every few feet compared to the US's different system.

They also probably work on commission, which retail in the United States has moved away from because it gave too much money to the workers.

I will try and find out. The move away from commission was driven by that and by consumers.

 

[Jarhyn]

The real change happens when the cooks are automated. Then all you need is one or two people to run the entire restaurant (or none at all, but that'd be just a big vending machine really).

I wonder then who *deserves* the money when all the services, from Wal Mart to McDonald's, are vending machines. is it the stockers of the machines, or the grandchildren of the people that built them, or perhaps the people who keep it all running? Or maybe nobody deserves to profit from a common carrier of food services.

 

[laughing dog]

I suspect a major factor that is driving this particular "innovation" is the difficulty in finding and scheduling workers in the fast food industry due to the high turnover. In my part of the USA, fast food workers have been earning more than the minimum wage for a number of years.

 

[untermensche]

The real change happens when the cooks are automated. Then all you need is one or two people to run the entire restaurant (or none at all, but that'd be just a big vending machine really).

I wonder then who *deserves* the money when all the services, from Wal Mart to McDonald's, are vending machines. is it the stockers of the machines, or the grandchildren of the people that built them, or perhaps the people who keep it all running? Or maybe nobody deserves to profit from a common carrier of food services.

Again, since the direction of automation is in the hands of people at the top they push automation into directions to replace workers.

It could just as easily be used to replace management.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

They also probably work on commission, which retail in the United States has moved away from because it gave too much money to the workers.

I will try and find out. The move away from commission was driven by that and by consumers.

Why consumers? They would pay the same for an item no matter how big the commission was.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I will try and find out. The move away from commission was driven by that and by consumers.

Why consumers? They would pay the same for an item no matter how big the commission was.

No, it's the pressure of the commission that will try and get salesman to buy things that the consumers don't want/need whether it's the model with the higher commision, the more expensive one, or just something the buyer doesn't need. For a company they will take a no sale but good buying experience over a sale with a negative experience.

The new model is not to have pushy salesman, but ones that meet what the consumers want, not just what the salesperson needs to do.