4 ms·

Teens are often broke, but not as often as a McDonald's shake machine. Funny they cost so much while being out of service so much of the time.

hinkley 7y ago
I believe I was asking why we hadn't replaced a janky part. I was told the price of the part and expressed incredulity. Grown up me still doesn't understand why the equipment costs that much, except that it's small production runs and captive audience.
- sangnoir 7y ago
  There are high demands on reliability: the equipment is expected to run 10-24 hours a day for years, without harming the operator or leaking oil onto customer's food.
  - jagged-chisel 7y ago
    I read comments like this as anthropomorphizing the machine - it's not like the machine has to remember to not harm the operator or not to leak. Anyway, I don't find this a compelling argument against allowing mechanical failures. Manufacturers these days understand the trade-offs between cost to manufacture, part reliability, and tolerance of failure. (That said, mechanical failure might not even be a problem with the machines. It could just be the need to claim their offline so that staff can service other customers better.)
    - sangnoir 7y ago
      > Anyway, I don't find this a compelling argument against allowing mechanical failures. Manufacturers these days understand the trade-offs between cost to manufacture, part reliability, and tolerance of failure. I fully agree - my point was not to anthropomorphize machines. However, as you said, manufacturers understand the trade-offs, and for "industrial-grade" products, they prioritize having longer Mean time to failure compared to consumer goods. MTTF is sometimes baked into the contract/warrantees since any downtime is money lost - McDonald's can't take the fry machine offline and continue serving 95% of their meals
asdff 7y ago
I did a little experiment at my local mcdonalds last time I got hit with that "ice cream machine is out" nonsense. It happened on a night shift with 1 person at the register and 1 in the back. I showed up the next day with full staff and what do you know, the machine had been fixed in those 12 hours. Or more likely, the two high schoolers working that night shift did not want to get swamped and behind having to add 2 minutes to every single order in their queue when they have to step away from what they are doing for the rest of the orders and make a shake. Rather than do that and have to be working from behind all night, the shake machine becomes 'broken' for that shift, and there aren't going to be any brown nosing managers working night shift anyway to put their foot down.

hinkley 7y ago

I believe I was asking why we hadn't replaced a janky part. I was told the price of the part and expressed incredulity. Grown up me still doesn't understand why the equipment costs that much, except that it's small production runs and captive audience.

sangnoir 7y ago
There are high demands on reliability: the equipment is expected to run 10-24 hours a day for years, without harming the operator or leaking oil onto customer's food.
- jagged-chisel 7y ago
  I read comments like this as anthropomorphizing the machine - it's not like the machine has to remember to not harm the operator or not to leak. Anyway, I don't find this a compelling argument against allowing mechanical failures. Manufacturers these days understand the trade-offs between cost to manufacture, part reliability, and tolerance of failure. (That said, mechanical failure might not even be a problem with the machines. It could just be the need to claim their offline so that staff can service other customers better.)
  - sangnoir 7y ago
    > Anyway, I don't find this a compelling argument against allowing mechanical failures. Manufacturers these days understand the trade-offs between cost to manufacture, part reliability, and tolerance of failure. I fully agree - my point was not to anthropomorphize machines. However, as you said, manufacturers understand the trade-offs, and for "industrial-grade" products, they prioritize having longer Mean time to failure compared to consumer goods. MTTF is sometimes baked into the contract/warrantees since any downtime is money lost - McDonald's can't take the fry machine offline and continue serving 95% of their meals

asdff 7y ago

I did a little experiment at my local mcdonalds last time I got hit with that "ice cream machine is out" nonsense. It happened on a night shift with 1 person at the register and 1 in the back. I showed up the next day with full staff and what do you know, the machine had been fixed in those 12 hours. Or more likely, the two high schoolers working that night shift did not want to get swamped and behind having to add 2 minutes to every single order in their queue when they have to step away from what they are doing for the rest of the orders and make a shake. Rather than do that and have to be working from behind all night, the shake machine becomes 'broken' for that shift, and there aren't going to be any brown nosing managers working night shift anyway to put their foot down.