3 ms·

focus on speed and quality That's the idea. Part of what they're trying to do is speed up drive-thru service, since that's now where the majority of customers

focus on speed and quality That's the idea. Part of what they're trying to do is speed up drive-thru service, since that's now where the majority of customers visit. Humans can't predict what to make in the minutes before a customer pulls up to the speaker, but an ML tied into a number of systems and inputs might be able to do a better job. It's not really anything new, to be honest. Back in the days where restaurants cooked and wrapped the burgers ahead of time and held them in a warming bin for 10 minutes at a time (at least that's what the spec dictated) the managers would keep detailed records on customer count, weather, cars in the lot, local events, etc and try to make predictions based on historical data. Wasn't the most effective, but it helped. This is just a modernization of that idea.

toast0 8y ago
Man was it fast when you could come in and they had burgers in the bin waiting. They got shamed into cooking to order, and the downside is waiting; I'm never ordering a quarter pounder again since they changed those recently to take forever to cook.
- joezydeco 8y ago
  From what I know, speeding up the whole "made to order" menu is one of the prime motivators of all this technology. The fresh burgers are a leap ahead in quality but an order of magnitude slower to make. MCD will most likely spend half a billion dollars to get that burger on the grill 90 seconds earlier if it's possible.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    No the burgers are not a leap ahead. They are marginally better, but that isn't saying much. I find them barely edible but tolerate them if I'm pressed for time.
    - joezydeco 8y ago
      Your opinion vs millions of data points on their end. You do you.
toomuchtodo 8y ago
> Humans can't predict what to make in the minutes before a customer pulls up to the speaker, but an ML tied into a number of systems and inputs might be able to do a better job. Mcdonalds has a mobile app, where you can order and your food will be ready before you arrive. Wouldn't it have been better to push customers towards this channel, where they can order what they want instead of ML guessing, and saving a couple hundred million dollars along the way? As others have mentioned, Dominoes doesn't use ML/AI, but you can order a pizza crazy fast through the app and know when it's done (and that seems to be enough).
- joezydeco 8y ago
  I don't know if I could draw an analogy to pizza here. It's a different type of purchase. You know it's going to take 15-20 minutes to make and more often than not it's going to be delivered. It also survives the delivery/pickup process with better quality. Have you ever eaten MCD french fries that were more than 5 minutes old? From my interactions with their people, the mobile app is the conduit to the future but there are a lot of kinks still left to be worked out. For example: you order on the app, but when exactly do you start the food? You might be 30 seconds from the store or 30 minutes. The initial idea was to geofence the store and trigger the kitchen when you're on the way. Perhaps that's still going, but maybe the ML is an assist on that data. You also get a ton of marketing and demographic information out of that. There are also the usual privacy concerns. Remember that there's also a ton of data being generated in the other direction. Predictive analytics on the equipment (everything in the kitchen will be an edge node in a few years), POS/cash accounting, real-time sales data, store traffic, crew work history, etc. They're also experimenting with dynamic pricing on food, like it or not.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Great points. Thanks for the reply.

toast0 8y ago

Man was it fast when you could come in and they had burgers in the bin waiting. They got shamed into cooking to order, and the downside is waiting; I'm never ordering a quarter pounder again since they changed those recently to take forever to cook.

joezydeco 8y ago
From what I know, speeding up the whole "made to order" menu is one of the prime motivators of all this technology. The fresh burgers are a leap ahead in quality but an order of magnitude slower to make. MCD will most likely spend half a billion dollars to get that burger on the grill 90 seconds earlier if it's possible.
- ams6110 8y ago
  No the burgers are not a leap ahead. They are marginally better, but that isn't saying much. I find them barely edible but tolerate them if I'm pressed for time.
  - joezydeco 8y ago
    Your opinion vs millions of data points on their end. You do you.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

> Humans can't predict what to make in the minutes before a customer pulls up to the speaker, but an ML tied into a number of systems and inputs might be able to do a better job. Mcdonalds has a mobile app, where you can order and your food will be ready before you arrive. Wouldn't it have been better to push customers towards this channel, where they can order what they want instead of ML guessing, and saving a couple hundred million dollars along the way? As others have mentioned, Dominoes doesn't use ML/AI, but you can order a pizza crazy fast through the app and know when it's done (and that seems to be enough).

joezydeco 8y ago
I don't know if I could draw an analogy to pizza here. It's a different type of purchase. You know it's going to take 15-20 minutes to make and more often than not it's going to be delivered. It also survives the delivery/pickup process with better quality. Have you ever eaten MCD french fries that were more than 5 minutes old? From my interactions with their people, the mobile app is the conduit to the future but there are a lot of kinks still left to be worked out. For example: you order on the app, but when exactly do you start the food? You might be 30 seconds from the store or 30 minutes. The initial idea was to geofence the store and trigger the kitchen when you're on the way. Perhaps that's still going, but maybe the ML is an assist on that data. You also get a ton of marketing and demographic information out of that. There are also the usual privacy concerns. Remember that there's also a ton of data being generated in the other direction. Predictive analytics on the equipment (everything in the kitchen will be an edge node in a few years), POS/cash accounting, real-time sales data, store traffic, crew work history, etc. They're also experimenting with dynamic pricing on food, like it or not.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Great points. Thanks for the reply.