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Fluff piece almost devoid of content; a quasi-submarine for industry executives that namedrops a few companies selling fancy point-of-sale tech. The two import

Fluff piece almost devoid of content; a quasi-submarine for industry executives that namedrops a few companies selling fancy point-of-sale tech. The two important points made in the article are that fast food places have issues with timing mobile orders, and many store managers notice that mobile pickup facilities are overprovisioned relative to their usage. The first is a solved problem in the world of takeout pizzas; in fact, such pizza places often have minimal storefronts and waiting space. But pizza keeps well in a box under its own heat, and heatlamps have become unfashionable in fast food as everyone wants to move upmarket and made-to-order. But there's also a UX solution: detect or ask the customer via the app when they're ready for the order to be made. The second point is ironic: all these companies pushed into mobile ordering as a top-down directive thinking that's what users want. They'll push into AI or whatever hype next the same way. It's bullshit. People want low prices (McDonald's, Taco Bell), or they want the appearance of quality (Panera). Blowing a ton of money on some half-baked ML ordering system is a waste, when they've already cut their cashiers by putting up slow kiosks and put all their ordering UI on everyone's phone. But the people selling this to clueless executives spinning their wheels stand to make a decent chunk of change until they cash out to some equally-clueless established point-of-sale company.

skwb 8y ago
I suppose you could even use some basic ML (or hell, just geo-location and expected arrival) get an idea of when to prompt the restaurant to "start making XYZ order" when it appears the customer is driving in the direction of the restaurant. Though this does potentially doesn't make since if your gym is right next to the burrito shop, and you end up with a cold burrito!
- joezydeco 8y ago
  This is exactly what the larger chains are trying to accomplish. Let's take McDonald's as an example. I've worked there as a crew member and, many ironic decades later, currently assist some of their OEMs in the kitchen equipment area. McD has always been a JIT-based manufacturing/assembly company. And their production window isn't a week or a day: it's 10 minutes. Back in the old days when you walked in and there was a bin full of burgers, those were all made to be sold or tossed after 10 minutes. How do you manage that without wasting a single burger? Managers would keep insanely detailed logs of sales by the hour or even half-hour to try and assemble some kind of historical record that could be used to anticipate future demand. They would even record the traffic level outside and weather conditions. It worked pretty well, but one rogue schoolbus full of hungry teens would blow that forecast out the window. The newer systems try to smooth some of that out with heated holding cabinets and faster toasters and et cetera, but there are some things you really can't batch and hold for very long, like fries. Customer demand has also required some of the batched systems go away, like the Quarter Pounders being grilled as they are ordered. So when a batch of fries takes 5 minutes to cook, and you know there's a wave of people arriving, any technique to help anticipate that and trigger a production cycle sooner is ideal. It benefits producer and consumer alike. Mobile ordering isn't a panacea, and in fact the current system isn't very usable at all. But they're trying. And I do know second-hand that they're aware of geofencing but there are complications to a system like that as well.

skwb 8y ago

I suppose you could even use some basic ML (or hell, just geo-location and expected arrival) get an idea of when to prompt the restaurant to "start making XYZ order" when it appears the customer is driving in the direction of the restaurant. Though this does potentially doesn't make since if your gym is right next to the burrito shop, and you end up with a cold burrito!

joezydeco 8y ago
This is exactly what the larger chains are trying to accomplish. Let's take McDonald's as an example. I've worked there as a crew member and, many ironic decades later, currently assist some of their OEMs in the kitchen equipment area. McD has always been a JIT-based manufacturing/assembly company. And their production window isn't a week or a day: it's 10 minutes. Back in the old days when you walked in and there was a bin full of burgers, those were all made to be sold or tossed after 10 minutes. How do you manage that without wasting a single burger? Managers would keep insanely detailed logs of sales by the hour or even half-hour to try and assemble some kind of historical record that could be used to anticipate future demand. They would even record the traffic level outside and weather conditions. It worked pretty well, but one rogue schoolbus full of hungry teens would blow that forecast out the window. The newer systems try to smooth some of that out with heated holding cabinets and faster toasters and et cetera, but there are some things you really can't batch and hold for very long, like fries. Customer demand has also required some of the batched systems go away, like the Quarter Pounders being grilled as they are ordered. So when a batch of fries takes 5 minutes to cook, and you know there's a wave of people arriving, any technique to help anticipate that and trigger a production cycle sooner is ideal. It benefits producer and consumer alike. Mobile ordering isn't a panacea, and in fact the current system isn't very usable at all. But they're trying. And I do know second-hand that they're aware of geofencing but there are complications to a system like that as well.