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What's interesting is that McDonald's wait times have actually gone up since they moved to kiosk ordering, mobile app ordering, Uber eats etc. They've increased

What's interesting is that McDonald's wait times have actually gone up since they moved to kiosk ordering, mobile app ordering, Uber eats etc. They've increased their ability to take orders, but haven't been able to keep up on the supply side. The old way was almost better in that it introduced a natural bottleneck so while it took longer to place your order, once you did, the queue in front of you was shorter. https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-spending-millions-on-drive-thru-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-spending-millions-...

xenonite 6y ago
Moreover, one could just look at the shelf of already prepared burgers and buy one of them. So quick!
nebulous1 6y ago
That seems to be looking at "speaker to order window" instead of "arrival to order window" times. This seems odd to me, as personally I would want to minimize the latter not the former.
forgone 6y ago
anyone knows why they are not doing the same in UK? Most restaurants stopped being available in Uber eats and deliveroo
formercoder 6y ago
Wouldn’t that be working as intended? More revenue
DeonPenny 6y ago
That seems like a good problem cause before they had issues with demand. I think based on McDonald history of optimization they feel like they can solve that supply side issue more easily than the demand side one they were contending with
punnerud 6y ago
Could it be that the reduced stress on the buyers result in reduced speed on the staff?
skrebbel 6y ago
This is intentional. In fact, I've seen many McDonald'ses that were redecorated such that you can't see the screen with the queued/ready orders from where the kiosks are. This way, you're not discouraged from ordering if you feel like the wait will be too long. This is also why McDonald's introduced table service, which is only in restaurants that have a layout where it's impossible to hide how many people are waiting. It costs manpower to deliver food to tables, but the additional orders are worth it. McD's don't mind if you have to wait, they mind if you leave before you order. "Busy-looking queue" is a much more frequent problem than "totally-packed-restaurant". Source: I like hamburgers + I geek out over stuff like this. I.e., Just Guessing.
- arrty88 6y ago
  Yet we are willing to wait for chipotle, five guys, shake shack for 20 min m
  - darkerside 6y ago
    ? Chipotle is about as fast as it gets
    - dillonmckay 6y ago
      Not when the person in front of you is getting 6 different orders.
  - loblollyboy 6y ago
    Do you not have tastebuds?
    - jiofih 6y ago
      Do you? Those are some of the best dirty burgers you can have on this planet.
      - sli 6y ago
agumonkey 6y ago
It's so sadly true that you can realize it without even looking. The kiosk system is human-less thinking, we're not machines operating with pure logistics in mind. We like to have responsibilities in a way. When I'm talking to a cashier, he/she feels a duty to do something from A to B. With decoupled ordering.. nobody knows who I am, nobody really cares (McDonalds doesn't pay nor train for welcoming and service mindset). I'm just a thing carrying a ticket. I've seen things so absurd, people walking around not knowing who to talk to, where to go, what to assume; both customers or employees. It was a surrealist comical situation. Also my average time to serve for 1 hamburger with no other customer around is 7min. (5-15). Talk about fast food :) Another point, I don't mean to make people work more, but I even prefer busy waiting lines with hectic kitchen action. That's what McDonalds were, high throughput grill. It felt something.. now it's all dull and clinic. Oh and lastly .. the kiosk are fugly. They break the room space, break the flow of people, are way too big for their purpose (100$ a stupid tiny 80s monochrome terminal, would do better :p) ps: This decoupling idea was tried at a company I worked for. Exact same principle (which I also gave some credit at first), split everything in small chunks so people can go faster.. it all went worse because nobody took responsibility for anything since a single task was now a dozen tiny bits done by a dozen people not really knowing what their bit was for. They just passed the products from hand to hand, not being able to track who or what was wrong until the last guy received all the shit because he's the one to show the result to the managers :)
- m463 6y ago
  social distancing may skew everything towards kiosks.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    That is true. We might end up living in biohazard like cities from now one :)
  - bigyikes 6y ago
    If I’m worried about catching or spreading the virus, wouldn’t the kiosks be worse? Dozens of people touching the same surface with their bare hands seems more dangerous to me than telling my order to someone over a short distance, especially if masks are involved.
spamizbad 6y ago
I can't speak to the apps, but there's a foodcourt in my building with a kiosked McDonalds. Based on my observations, ordering with it is a slow, time consuming process. It's way faster to just say "I'll have a 5 with a coke". Most people in a hurry opt to stand in line with a cashier, which has a line that moves much faster.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  Totally agree, I loathe the kiosks, it is an incredibly slow way to order food. Perhaps they need to implement a voice assistant so you can just ask for a 5 with a coke.
cle 6y ago
It’s called backpressure and it’s one of the tradeoffs that should be considered when thinking about adopting async work queues. There is no natural backpressure mechanism so it takes a lot more work to ensure you either reject new work after hitting a limit, or scale your workers so you can keep up with the queue backlog. Queues seem great, until they’re not, and then you enter a much more complicated world.

xenonite 6y ago

Moreover, one could just look at the shelf of already prepared burgers and buy one of them. So quick!

nebulous1 6y ago

That seems to be looking at "speaker to order window" instead of "arrival to order window" times. This seems odd to me, as personally I would want to minimize the latter not the former.

forgone 6y ago

anyone knows why they are not doing the same in UK? Most restaurants stopped being available in Uber eats and deliveroo

formercoder 6y ago

Wouldn’t that be working as intended? More revenue

DeonPenny 6y ago

That seems like a good problem cause before they had issues with demand. I think based on McDonald history of optimization they feel like they can solve that supply side issue more easily than the demand side one they were contending with

punnerud 6y ago

Could it be that the reduced stress on the buyers result in reduced speed on the staff?

skrebbel 6y ago

This is intentional. In fact, I've seen many McDonald'ses that were redecorated such that you can't see the screen with the queued/ready orders from where the kiosks are. This way, you're not discouraged from ordering if you feel like the wait will be too long. This is also why McDonald's introduced table service, which is only in restaurants that have a layout where it's impossible to hide how many people are waiting. It costs manpower to deliver food to tables, but the additional orders are worth it. McD's don't mind if you have to wait, they mind if you leave before you order. "Busy-looking queue" is a much more frequent problem than "totally-packed-restaurant". Source: I like hamburgers + I geek out over stuff like this. I.e., Just Guessing.

arrty88 6y ago
Yet we are willing to wait for chipotle, five guys, shake shack for 20 min m
- darkerside 6y ago
  ? Chipotle is about as fast as it gets
  - dillonmckay 6y ago
    Not when the person in front of you is getting 6 different orders.
- loblollyboy 6y ago
  Do you not have tastebuds?
  - jiofih 6y ago
    Do you? Those are some of the best dirty burgers you can have on this planet.
    - sli 6y ago

agumonkey 6y ago

It's so sadly true that you can realize it without even looking. The kiosk system is human-less thinking, we're not machines operating with pure logistics in mind. We like to have responsibilities in a way. When I'm talking to a cashier, he/she feels a duty to do something from A to B. With decoupled ordering.. nobody knows who I am, nobody really cares (McDonalds doesn't pay nor train for welcoming and service mindset). I'm just a thing carrying a ticket. I've seen things so absurd, people walking around not knowing who to talk to, where to go, what to assume; both customers or employees. It was a surrealist comical situation. Also my average time to serve for 1 hamburger with no other customer around is 7min. (5-15). Talk about fast food :) Another point, I don't mean to make people work more, but I even prefer busy waiting lines with hectic kitchen action. That's what McDonalds were, high throughput grill. It felt something.. now it's all dull and clinic. Oh and lastly .. the kiosk are fugly. They break the room space, break the flow of people, are way too big for their purpose (100$ a stupid tiny 80s monochrome terminal, would do better :p) ps: This decoupling idea was tried at a company I worked for. Exact same principle (which I also gave some credit at first), split everything in small chunks so people can go faster.. it all went worse because nobody took responsibility for anything since a single task was now a dozen tiny bits done by a dozen people not really knowing what their bit was for. They just passed the products from hand to hand, not being able to track who or what was wrong until the last guy received all the shit because he's the one to show the result to the managers :)

m463 6y ago
social distancing may skew everything towards kiosks.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  That is true. We might end up living in biohazard like cities from now one :)
- bigyikes 6y ago
  If I’m worried about catching or spreading the virus, wouldn’t the kiosks be worse? Dozens of people touching the same surface with their bare hands seems more dangerous to me than telling my order to someone over a short distance, especially if masks are involved.

spamizbad 6y ago

I can't speak to the apps, but there's a foodcourt in my building with a kiosked McDonalds. Based on my observations, ordering with it is a slow, time consuming process. It's way faster to just say "I'll have a 5 with a coke". Most people in a hurry opt to stand in line with a cashier, which has a line that moves much faster.

rootusrootus 6y ago
Totally agree, I loathe the kiosks, it is an incredibly slow way to order food. Perhaps they need to implement a voice assistant so you can just ask for a 5 with a coke.

cle 6y ago

It’s called backpressure and it’s one of the tradeoffs that should be considered when thinking about adopting async work queues. There is no natural backpressure mechanism so it takes a lot more work to ensure you either reject new work after hitting a limit, or scale your workers so you can keep up with the queue backlog. Queues seem great, until they’re not, and then you enter a much more complicated world.