4 ms·

This seems like an overengineered problem for food. I don't get how all of the capital expense can be justified for the ever slimming margins of food production

This seems like an overengineered problem for food. I don't get how all of the capital expense can be justified for the ever slimming margins of food production? Do they plan to scale it up? Others have mentioned pizza factories and wouldn't that be their competition? I don't get it.

syshum 9y ago
>> I don't get it. $15 / hr minimum wage laws
- wklauss 9y ago
  This machine would have been designed regardless of minimum wage salary.
  - syshum 9y ago
    While that is likely true, the ROI as much faster with a 15/hr min wage. Ensuring that more and more companies automate at a faster rate, when we as a society have done nothing to address the problem this creates. We (society) are increasing the minimum wage with out figuring out what to do with all the unemployable people that do not have the education, experience, or in some cases the talent to command a wage that high. The belief is that companies will just "eat" the added costs because they are simply greedy today and can "afford" to pay more, these types of robots prove this will not be the result and what will be the result is massive unemployment
    - wklauss 9y ago
      > These types of robots prove this will not be the result and what will be the result is massive unemployment Massive unemployment for certain jobs is unavoidable at this point. Serves no purpose to condemn workers for several decades to survive with really low salaries. If there are greater efficiencies due to automation, everyone should be participating on the value created (insert basic income theories here or other similar policies) As for the minimum wage... what can I say. Going to 15$ doesn't seem to be the end of the world. Adjusting for inflation, current minimum wage is really on lowest value for the decade and about median for the last 60 years. Considering how much economy has expanded in 60 years, seems like a very raw deal for workers in certain sectors.
draw_down 9y ago
I never understood why minimum wage labor was so expensive for fast food or pizza places, and that's pretty much what they're eliminating here. Maybe the answer is that margins are so slim in the food business that any significant reduction in cost is bigger than it appears?
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >Maybe the answer is that margins are so slim in the food business that any significant reduction in cost is bigger than it appears? Seems so. We've got people saying labor is the biggest cost for a restaurant or pizzeria, but that necessitates asking: holy shit, how can the value-add of a fresh, hot pizza over its unprepared ingredients be so low that it's worth cutting wages to below $8/hour by robotizing the work? If pizza really takes that much value as input, why does it have so little value as output?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > We've got people saying labor is the biggest cost for a restaurant or pizzeria, but that necessitates asking: holy shit, how can the value-add of a fresh, hot pizza over its unprepared ingredients be so low that it's worth cutting wages to below $8/hour by robotizing the work? In a competitive market, it's always worth reducing the cost of inputs. The restaurant business is generally a competitive market (it's actually a bit worse than an ideal competitive market for participants, because there are usually lots of unsustainable competitors selling below cost and losing money.)
    - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      >(it's actually a bit worse than an ideal competitive market for participants, because there are usually lots of unsustainable competitors selling below cost and losing money.) This sounds like the problem. Shouldn't the government do something about these anticompetitive practices? I don't think a good economy involves "charities" driving the restaurant business to extinction.
FullContCoder 9y ago
If they suss it out for one place, they can roll it out to many places. So yes scaling up is the whole idea. Pizza factories make pizzas in batches, like 2000 times pizza Y. And they get frozen, no need for an oven. Here you need to make X, Y and Z pizza for this order. Then just an X. Then 2 Y's and a Z. All need to be made from scratch and end up hot in a pizzabox. So quite different from the factory.
- tyingq 9y ago
  It would be interesting to hear what they think the net gain is. Some places are pretty optimised already. Little Caesars, for example, usually has only 2 or 3 workers.
  - bluedino 9y ago
    Pizza places need more drivers than anything.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      I wonder if there's some business opportunity there. I would guess a pool of drivers that serve more than one pizza chain might be more efficient than ones assigned to a specific company. Or maybe the pizza companies have some vision to leverage their own driver networks for things other than pizza?
      - BrooklynRage 9y ago
        Like Ubereats?
        tyingq 9y ago
        Well your leverage with a pizza place that already has its own drivers might be a bit different. More like a white label offering. Which has lower margins, and requires the customers don't view their driver network as an asset.
mason240 9y ago
Labor is the largest cost for a restaurant.

syshum 9y ago

>> I don't get it. $15 / hr minimum wage laws

wklauss 9y ago
This machine would have been designed regardless of minimum wage salary.
- syshum 9y ago
  While that is likely true, the ROI as much faster with a 15/hr min wage. Ensuring that more and more companies automate at a faster rate, when we as a society have done nothing to address the problem this creates. We (society) are increasing the minimum wage with out figuring out what to do with all the unemployable people that do not have the education, experience, or in some cases the talent to command a wage that high. The belief is that companies will just "eat" the added costs because they are simply greedy today and can "afford" to pay more, these types of robots prove this will not be the result and what will be the result is massive unemployment
  - wklauss 9y ago
    > These types of robots prove this will not be the result and what will be the result is massive unemployment Massive unemployment for certain jobs is unavoidable at this point. Serves no purpose to condemn workers for several decades to survive with really low salaries. If there are greater efficiencies due to automation, everyone should be participating on the value created (insert basic income theories here or other similar policies) As for the minimum wage... what can I say. Going to 15$ doesn't seem to be the end of the world. Adjusting for inflation, current minimum wage is really on lowest value for the decade and about median for the last 60 years. Considering how much economy has expanded in 60 years, seems like a very raw deal for workers in certain sectors.

draw_down 9y ago

I never understood why minimum wage labor was so expensive for fast food or pizza places, and that's pretty much what they're eliminating here. Maybe the answer is that margins are so slim in the food business that any significant reduction in cost is bigger than it appears?

eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>Maybe the answer is that margins are so slim in the food business that any significant reduction in cost is bigger than it appears? Seems so. We've got people saying labor is the biggest cost for a restaurant or pizzeria, but that necessitates asking: holy shit, how can the value-add of a fresh, hot pizza over its unprepared ingredients be so low that it's worth cutting wages to below $8/hour by robotizing the work? If pizza really takes that much value as input, why does it have so little value as output?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > We've got people saying labor is the biggest cost for a restaurant or pizzeria, but that necessitates asking: holy shit, how can the value-add of a fresh, hot pizza over its unprepared ingredients be so low that it's worth cutting wages to below $8/hour by robotizing the work? In a competitive market, it's always worth reducing the cost of inputs. The restaurant business is generally a competitive market (it's actually a bit worse than an ideal competitive market for participants, because there are usually lots of unsustainable competitors selling below cost and losing money.)
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    >(it's actually a bit worse than an ideal competitive market for participants, because there are usually lots of unsustainable competitors selling below cost and losing money.) This sounds like the problem. Shouldn't the government do something about these anticompetitive practices? I don't think a good economy involves "charities" driving the restaurant business to extinction.

FullContCoder 9y ago

If they suss it out for one place, they can roll it out to many places. So yes scaling up is the whole idea. Pizza factories make pizzas in batches, like 2000 times pizza Y. And they get frozen, no need for an oven. Here you need to make X, Y and Z pizza for this order. Then just an X. Then 2 Y's and a Z. All need to be made from scratch and end up hot in a pizzabox. So quite different from the factory.

tyingq 9y ago
It would be interesting to hear what they think the net gain is. Some places are pretty optimised already. Little Caesars, for example, usually has only 2 or 3 workers.
- bluedino 9y ago
  Pizza places need more drivers than anything.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I wonder if there's some business opportunity there. I would guess a pool of drivers that serve more than one pizza chain might be more efficient than ones assigned to a specific company. Or maybe the pizza companies have some vision to leverage their own driver networks for things other than pizza?
    - BrooklynRage 9y ago
      Like Ubereats?
      - tyingq 9y ago
        Well your leverage with a pizza place that already has its own drivers might be a bit different. More like a white label offering. Which has lower margins, and requires the customers don't view their driver network as an asset.

mason240 9y ago

Labor is the largest cost for a restaurant.