4 ms·

They aren't "broken". It's operations failures. The basic fact of 1. Keeping the machine full of the right amount of product to complete it's nightly heat cycl

They aren't "broken". It's operations failures. The basic fact of 1. Keeping the machine full of the right amount of product to complete it's nightly heat cycle 2. Have someone trained to fully clean the machine every 14 days Is a burden too great for many franchisees to bear. The turnover is too high and investment in people too low to keep them operational. Nothing about them is "broken"

sverhagen 5y ago
Poor UI is also a bug. And why do other fast food chains not have this problem then? I appreciate that McDonalds tries to safe money on training of new staff, but I just can't imagine that they do so much of a worse job at it than the competition. Did you see the video?
asdff 5y ago
Why are they using such a complicated ice cream machine? I worked in food service in the 2010s and ours was pretty simple. One switch at the back for on and off and that was it. It took one person like 10 minutes to break it down and have it cleaned at the end of the night. The hardest part was wiping the exterior down. You basically just put a bucket underneath, ran the ice cream out, then ran hot water through it (forgot if we used some sort of sanitizer here), and hand washed a couple pieces. Other commercial icecream machines I've seen work like this. This mcdonalds machine is blowing my mind. I wonder why they opted not to use the bog standard ice cream machine every other fast food place uses.
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  It sounds like the idea is to only have to spend time manually cleaning it every fortnight instead of daily, and perhaps to limit waste of the product? But perhaps that gets offset by the fact that the increased complexity seems to make it so difficult to operate that it leads to constant interruptions and expensive service calls.
  - ogurechny 5y ago
    Most likely, the real answer was given straight away: a worker from other company says they clean their machines daily. I'd expect that in common language that means they disassemble and wash them the old way without using any automatic maintenance programs. But then you wouldn't have a vaguely sensational video on a pop cultural topic with a million of views. I guess it's a typical big company nonsense. Someone probably had an idea that daily cleaning is too time-consuming and expensive, and the task to solve that problem was introduced. Some lab made tests, and defined The Only True Way of keeping the product edible. (Side note: re-boiling a mix of fats and sugars each day for two weeks? Who would eat the result of that? Who thought it was a reliable idea?) The cleaning period could only be stretched to the maximum, for obvious business reasons. That resulted in tiny error margins (which maker can't voluntary change without spending money on new research). So presentations on clear financial gains were made, and the new option was proudly implemented. Some employee has probably been keeping eye on changes in cream composition, regulations, and related research, and issuing new checks for the machines. However, in reality this doesn't work that well (even indifferent part-time workers who don't give a damn after a shift are part of reality you can't simply rule out). But the goal of reverting or altering the process is not really important to McDonalds, as making it work is now pain in the store owner's ass. You have probably noticed similar cases in computing, when some high-tech solution are introduced, and their gains are shared with lots of pathos, but the resulting system looks way too complex and unstable even from a distance.
  - asdff 5y ago
    It just seems like some vendor got the contract before a cost benefit analysis could be done. I mean 15 minutes out of a shift worker's time costs mcDonalds maybe $5. $5 for a day of ice cream sales seems like a cheap service contract to me.
- slantyyz 5y ago
  The video is not a complete story. I suggest you read the Wired article that came out a few days ago, as it addresses a lot of the questions being asked here. https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-... It should be worth noting that the story in this video and the Wired article appears to have been initiated by the creators of the Kytch.
  - LorenPechtel 5y ago
    And note that the very existence of the Kytch says there's a big problem with the UI of the machines.
h0l0cube 5y ago
It seems like you didn't bother to watch the video, but used the OP synopsis as an accurate distillation of the investigation... which it isn't. McDonalds (purportedly) have to use an inferior machine. This machine is used by many other franchises, including Wendy's, but the UX has been specifically throttled in the McDonalds mandated model such that the error messages are opaque. So much so, that when a newer version was rolled out, one of the techs posted a video wondering if anyone else noticed the error messages were getting worse (and the video was promptly taken down). Thus training becomes much more difficult when error messages are in Eldritch screeches instead of plain English, like every other model. I'm not sure if you've worked at McDonalds (you've never specifically stated in any comment) and you've never specified when. Is it possible things are different now to when (or whichever franchise) you worked?

sverhagen 5y ago

Poor UI is also a bug. And why do other fast food chains not have this problem then? I appreciate that McDonalds tries to safe money on training of new staff, but I just can't imagine that they do so much of a worse job at it than the competition. Did you see the video?

asdff 5y ago

Why are they using such a complicated ice cream machine? I worked in food service in the 2010s and ours was pretty simple. One switch at the back for on and off and that was it. It took one person like 10 minutes to break it down and have it cleaned at the end of the night. The hardest part was wiping the exterior down. You basically just put a bucket underneath, ran the ice cream out, then ran hot water through it (forgot if we used some sort of sanitizer here), and hand washed a couple pieces. Other commercial icecream machines I've seen work like this. This mcdonalds machine is blowing my mind. I wonder why they opted not to use the bog standard ice cream machine every other fast food place uses.

Cederfjard 5y ago
It sounds like the idea is to only have to spend time manually cleaning it every fortnight instead of daily, and perhaps to limit waste of the product? But perhaps that gets offset by the fact that the increased complexity seems to make it so difficult to operate that it leads to constant interruptions and expensive service calls.
- ogurechny 5y ago
  Most likely, the real answer was given straight away: a worker from other company says they clean their machines daily. I'd expect that in common language that means they disassemble and wash them the old way without using any automatic maintenance programs. But then you wouldn't have a vaguely sensational video on a pop cultural topic with a million of views. I guess it's a typical big company nonsense. Someone probably had an idea that daily cleaning is too time-consuming and expensive, and the task to solve that problem was introduced. Some lab made tests, and defined The Only True Way of keeping the product edible. (Side note: re-boiling a mix of fats and sugars each day for two weeks? Who would eat the result of that? Who thought it was a reliable idea?) The cleaning period could only be stretched to the maximum, for obvious business reasons. That resulted in tiny error margins (which maker can't voluntary change without spending money on new research). So presentations on clear financial gains were made, and the new option was proudly implemented. Some employee has probably been keeping eye on changes in cream composition, regulations, and related research, and issuing new checks for the machines. However, in reality this doesn't work that well (even indifferent part-time workers who don't give a damn after a shift are part of reality you can't simply rule out). But the goal of reverting or altering the process is not really important to McDonalds, as making it work is now pain in the store owner's ass. You have probably noticed similar cases in computing, when some high-tech solution are introduced, and their gains are shared with lots of pathos, but the resulting system looks way too complex and unstable even from a distance.
- asdff 5y ago
  It just seems like some vendor got the contract before a cost benefit analysis could be done. I mean 15 minutes out of a shift worker's time costs mcDonalds maybe $5. $5 for a day of ice cream sales seems like a cheap service contract to me.
slantyyz 5y ago
The video is not a complete story. I suggest you read the Wired article that came out a few days ago, as it addresses a lot of the questions being asked here. https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-... It should be worth noting that the story in this video and the Wired article appears to have been initiated by the creators of the Kytch.
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  And note that the very existence of the Kytch says there's a big problem with the UI of the machines.

h0l0cube 5y ago

It seems like you didn't bother to watch the video, but used the OP synopsis as an accurate distillation of the investigation... which it isn't. McDonalds (purportedly) have to use an inferior machine. This machine is used by many other franchises, including Wendy's, but the UX has been specifically throttled in the McDonalds mandated model such that the error messages are opaque. So much so, that when a newer version was rolled out, one of the techs posted a video wondering if anyone else noticed the error messages were getting worse (and the video was promptly taken down). Thus training becomes much more difficult when error messages are in Eldritch screeches instead of plain English, like every other model. I'm not sure if you've worked at McDonalds (you've never specifically stated in any comment) and you've never specified when. Is it possible things are different now to when (or whichever franchise) you worked?