4 ms·

> A 6 axis factory robot who's sole purpose is to move a pizza 2 feet from a conveyor belt into an oven? I have to believe they bought it with the idea of doin

by Xorlev 7y ago

> A 6 axis factory robot who's sole purpose is to move a pizza 2 feet from a conveyor belt into an oven? I have to believe they bought it with the idea of doing much much more but hadn't figured out how. Overall, it seems they knew they wanted to "automate pizza" but really had no idea how. Another comment shows a real pizza assembly line that looks both simple and efficient. Lets talk a minute about their "mobile ovens". WTH do they need 56 ovens for? It seems like assembly still has to happen at a "hub", but how many pizzas do you really need to bake on the way? Maybe a max of 10 for huge orders? > Serious question: would this investment have been awarded if the cofounder weren't a minority female? Lets not go there.

oldgradstudent 7y ago
> Overall, it seems they knew they wanted to "automate pizza" but really had no idea how. And didn't bother to do a simple Youtube search, watch one of the "how it's done" programs on TV, or talk to someone in the industry.
- hef19898 7y ago
  I saw an analysis of Shipley a couple of days ago. Apparently Shipley refused to hire people from the shipping industry. Because these people would refuse "innovation". Compare that to Amazon Logistics who hired a ton of people from other shipping companies. Maybe, just maybe, industry and domain knowledge are helpful. Even for disruptive start-ups.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Plus, many of those grizzled veterans would love to run with a green field project. They've been putting up with obvious inneffiencies for years because most of the time, it's not the experts that resist change, it's the inertia of a mega Corp that is doing so much business right now, that change is extremely difficult and disruptive.
    - hef19898 7y ago
      Yeah, so true. Consider me one of them. Occassions like this, Shiply, often strike me as young, aspiring scientist using other peoples money to figure out the a wheel should be round. Being a little bit more active in my local start-up scene now also means following stat-ups in general. And a lot of these companies, including one I used to work for for a short period, seem to ignore lessons other learned, the hard way. If these lessons are concerning your USP, ignore them, because it is where you inovate. regardless, you should have understood these lessons before ignoring them. Ignoring these lessons in any other part of your company is just stupid. Like not managing your cash flow.
Bluestrike2 7y ago
> I have to believe they bought it with the idea of doing much much more but hadn't figured out how. The video gave me the impression of a kitchen designed by a chef or line cook, with a manufacturing robot tossed in there. If the goal was automated centralized production, any competent manufacturing engineer would have designed a radically simpler setup. Of course, finding machinery that didn't have a production capacity too far beyond Zume's needs would probably have been a challenge. Hundreds of pizzas an hour--let alone thousands--is well beyond anything Zume could have handled, because their biggest bottleneck would have always been delivery. > Lets talk a minute about their "mobile ovens". WTH do they need 56 ovens for? It seems like assembly still has to happen at a "hub", but how many pizzas do you really need to bake on the way? Maybe a max of 10 for huge orders? The entire concept is a bit wacky. You don't need to bake the pizza entirely on the way; just scale up how New York pizzerias handle pizza by the slice.[0] A plain pizza gets half-baked and when a customer orders a slice, toppings are added and it's put in the oven for a couple minutes until fully cooked. Prepping whole pizzas at a central kitchen and then putting them in a delivery van that finishes cooking the pizzas is something I could maybe see being viable with minimal investment. A very hesitant maybe. But there are no robots and no wizards (er, machine learning some of Zume's early coverage discussed) for that kind of business. And that probably means no big investments as there are some articles where I can't help but substitute "magic" or "wizards" for certain words and think "yeah, that's probably closer to what some investors or journalists heard." 0. https://www.seriouseats.com/2018/10/new-york-pizza-slice-history.html https://www.seriouseats.com/2018/10/new-york-pizza-slice-his...

by Xorlev 7y ago

oldgradstudent 7y ago

> Overall, it seems they knew they wanted to "automate pizza" but really had no idea how. And didn't bother to do a simple Youtube search, watch one of the "how it's done" programs on TV, or talk to someone in the industry.

hef19898 7y ago
I saw an analysis of Shipley a couple of days ago. Apparently Shipley refused to hire people from the shipping industry. Because these people would refuse "innovation". Compare that to Amazon Logistics who hired a ton of people from other shipping companies. Maybe, just maybe, industry and domain knowledge are helpful. Even for disruptive start-ups.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Plus, many of those grizzled veterans would love to run with a green field project. They've been putting up with obvious inneffiencies for years because most of the time, it's not the experts that resist change, it's the inertia of a mega Corp that is doing so much business right now, that change is extremely difficult and disruptive.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Yeah, so true. Consider me one of them. Occassions like this, Shiply, often strike me as young, aspiring scientist using other peoples money to figure out the a wheel should be round. Being a little bit more active in my local start-up scene now also means following stat-ups in general. And a lot of these companies, including one I used to work for for a short period, seem to ignore lessons other learned, the hard way. If these lessons are concerning your USP, ignore them, because it is where you inovate. regardless, you should have understood these lessons before ignoring them. Ignoring these lessons in any other part of your company is just stupid. Like not managing your cash flow.

Bluestrike2 7y ago

> I have to believe they bought it with the idea of doing much much more but hadn't figured out how. The video gave me the impression of a kitchen designed by a chef or line cook, with a manufacturing robot tossed in there. If the goal was automated centralized production, any competent manufacturing engineer would have designed a radically simpler setup. Of course, finding machinery that didn't have a production capacity too far beyond Zume's needs would probably have been a challenge. Hundreds of pizzas an hour--let alone thousands--is well beyond anything Zume could have handled, because their biggest bottleneck would have always been delivery. > Lets talk a minute about their "mobile ovens". WTH do they need 56 ovens for? It seems like assembly still has to happen at a "hub", but how many pizzas do you really need to bake on the way? Maybe a max of 10 for huge orders? The entire concept is a bit wacky. You don't need to bake the pizza entirely on the way; just scale up how New York pizzerias handle pizza by the slice.[0] A plain pizza gets half-baked and when a customer orders a slice, toppings are added and it's put in the oven for a couple minutes until fully cooked. Prepping whole pizzas at a central kitchen and then putting them in a delivery van that finishes cooking the pizzas is something I could maybe see being viable with minimal investment. A very hesitant maybe. But there are no robots and no wizards (er, machine learning some of Zume's early coverage discussed) for that kind of business. And that probably means no big investments as there are some articles where I can't help but substitute "magic" or "wizards" for certain words and think "yeah, that's probably closer to what some investors or journalists heard." 0. https://www.seriouseats.com/2018/10/new-york-pizza-slice-history.html https://www.seriouseats.com/2018/10/new-york-pizza-slice-his...