5 ms·

I think people without any real background in the difficulties of automating purely human tasks (particularly manual ones), consistently underestimate the cost,

by Aloha 7y ago

I think people without any real background in the difficulties of automating purely human tasks (particularly manual ones), consistently underestimate the cost, difficulty and expense of maintenance for said automation. I used to work in a kitchen, so maintaining food service grade of cleanliness on robots, sounds frighteningly expensive to me.

stickfigure 7y ago
On the other hand, you can walk into a Krispy Kreme and watch the machine work. There's no reason that machine couldn't make french fries with a few changes. Maybe everything won't be automated all at once, but if the economic incentive is there, it will happen. Pizza making robots are already a thing. There's no reason the shake machine can't measure its output to the cup instead of pulling a lever; drink machines in many places already do this. Dispensing the cup too is not a big step.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  McDonalds already has those. French fry hoppers automatically filling baskets from a frozen mini-closet. Out comes fresh fries. Same for the cups that they can use in drive-throughs. I think it’s up to the franchises to buy/install them. Depends on volume/space whether its worthwhile/possible. Or they just push it to the customer to do it.
  - eyepea2007 7y ago
    About those automated drinks at McDonalds...when I order mine with 'no ice,' the machine is apparently incapable of filling the cup with the additional amount of coke that would normally be displaced by ice. It will simply fill the cup just 2/3 of the way. They seem to have realized this though, but instead of increasing the volume of coke dispensed, the machine drops ANOTHER cup which the employee is supposed to use to fill the actual cup to the top. The employees only do this half the time, however, which makes the entire process even more maddening. Somehow neither man, nor machine, can get a no-ice drink right at McDonalds.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      I hope one day they integrate the ice together with the drink and scoop out a single solid cube of ice to keep it from watering down right away.
    - odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
      That is because those machines are made in a way to mix the 'perfect' ratio of water + syrup. They take in account the ice as well. If the cup is 0.5l, it plans to be 0.4l of liquid + 0.1l of ice (random values), so if you chose no ice, you get 0.4l since that is the 'perfect' ratio. (And probably what they advertise ie '0.4l coke = 1 euro' or whatever, they just give a 0.5l cup to account for ice)
- tehwebguy 7y ago
  > There's no reason that machine couldn't make french fries with a few changes That machine is, like, 5 machines including an oil moat. With all of them together it makes up something like half the entire store's footprint. It's only remotely viable because that shop mostly only makes one thing. No breakfast sandwiches in the morning, no burgers at lunch time, just donuts. Plenty of employees are still required just to make the different types of donuts and donut-adjacent items (and also presumably to be there in case a monumental grease fire starts, or the dough machine blows a gasket starts spewing dough all over). > Pizza making robots are already a thing Presumably making the frozen ones sold at grocery stores, which might be a meaningful percentage of all pizza sold, but effectively 0% of any other pizzas?
  - Aloha 7y ago
    As you note, Krispy Kreme is a small scale donut factory with a store front ;-) This is an entirely different thing than a McDonalds. Yes, I could trivially make an automation machine to cook meat, we have them, they're called a charbroiler, similarly, toasting buns is pretty easy. The hard an expensive part is assembling all the parts into a package.

by Aloha 7y ago

stickfigure 7y ago

On the other hand, you can walk into a Krispy Kreme and watch the machine work. There's no reason that machine couldn't make french fries with a few changes. Maybe everything won't be automated all at once, but if the economic incentive is there, it will happen. Pizza making robots are already a thing. There's no reason the shake machine can't measure its output to the cup instead of pulling a lever; drink machines in many places already do this. Dispensing the cup too is not a big step.

Scoundreller 7y ago
McDonalds already has those. French fry hoppers automatically filling baskets from a frozen mini-closet. Out comes fresh fries. Same for the cups that they can use in drive-throughs. I think it’s up to the franchises to buy/install them. Depends on volume/space whether its worthwhile/possible. Or they just push it to the customer to do it.
- eyepea2007 7y ago
  About those automated drinks at McDonalds...when I order mine with 'no ice,' the machine is apparently incapable of filling the cup with the additional amount of coke that would normally be displaced by ice. It will simply fill the cup just 2/3 of the way. They seem to have realized this though, but instead of increasing the volume of coke dispensed, the machine drops ANOTHER cup which the employee is supposed to use to fill the actual cup to the top. The employees only do this half the time, however, which makes the entire process even more maddening. Somehow neither man, nor machine, can get a no-ice drink right at McDonalds.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    I hope one day they integrate the ice together with the drink and scoop out a single solid cube of ice to keep it from watering down right away.
  - odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
    That is because those machines are made in a way to mix the 'perfect' ratio of water + syrup. They take in account the ice as well. If the cup is 0.5l, it plans to be 0.4l of liquid + 0.1l of ice (random values), so if you chose no ice, you get 0.4l since that is the 'perfect' ratio. (And probably what they advertise ie '0.4l coke = 1 euro' or whatever, they just give a 0.5l cup to account for ice)
tehwebguy 7y ago
> There's no reason that machine couldn't make french fries with a few changes That machine is, like, 5 machines including an oil moat. With all of them together it makes up something like half the entire store's footprint. It's only remotely viable because that shop mostly only makes one thing. No breakfast sandwiches in the morning, no burgers at lunch time, just donuts. Plenty of employees are still required just to make the different types of donuts and donut-adjacent items (and also presumably to be there in case a monumental grease fire starts, or the dough machine blows a gasket starts spewing dough all over). > Pizza making robots are already a thing Presumably making the frozen ones sold at grocery stores, which might be a meaningful percentage of all pizza sold, but effectively 0% of any other pizzas?
- Aloha 7y ago
  As you note, Krispy Kreme is a small scale donut factory with a store front ;-) This is an entirely different thing than a McDonalds. Yes, I could trivially make an automation machine to cook meat, we have them, they're called a charbroiler, similarly, toasting buns is pretty easy. The hard an expensive part is assembling all the parts into a package.