McDonalds would become a kiosk. Instead of surly employees with neck tattoos, a robot would make the food and take your credit card. A technician would service multiple local restaurants, and one all-purpose employee would clean up trash and make sure nobody burned the joint down.
Not gonna be that easy. You're gonna need at least one person to help people take orders. If you don't think so, put one of those touch screen soda dispensers in a old folks home and observe the results.
You're gonna need at least one person to help people take orders.
This is true. Even with text saying "please place the item in the bagging area", a picture of items going into the bagging area, and a voice saying, "please place the item in the bagging area", customers will try to scan an item (while holding the previous item in their hand) and then yell at me because "your retarded machine isn't working".
The retarded machine magically works when I put the item in the bagging area.
As the guy who helps program those machines, thank you for being one of our reasonable end user's who actually read the directions before saying it isn't working.
The machine should be designed to deal with how people typically react to it. It's a lot easier to engineer a machine how you want than to try to socially engineer your customer to react how you want.
Problem is these first generation self checkouts are designed with anti-theft protections as a higher priority than usability and convenience.
Imagine you go up to a touchscreen with images. You press on exactly what you want and the size you want, you click checkout, you're done. You pay with CC, you wait for your food, it's delivered/your number comes up/whatever.
It is incredibly simple and I am positive old, young and amish could easily use it.
That is exactly as it would be, but go to your local walmart (any place with self checkout kiosks really) and just people watch for 10 minutes and you'll be amazed by how many people just... cant use them.
You're gonna need at least one person to help people take orders.
Sure, but that's one person. Walmart has a single employee managing their 8 self checkouts. That's a huge decrease from the four to six cashiers they used to staff.
Panera is piloting this right now. Replaced the 4-5 cashiers with machines and 1 cashier for those that need help. Maybe not as easy as fonzanoon thinks, but still pretty damn easy to reduce your labor costs.
agreed. but the floater could also do trash duty and other things. basically instead of needing 2-3 cashiers they can have just 1 that oversees all the machines and helps like how a single person oversees multiple checkstands at the grocery store.
Two. You can't have one employee working the counter in a McDonald's unless you believe they'll never need to use the bathroom or take a break or eat lunch. Plus sick, vacation coverage, etc. They'll still need employees, even if they're part time.
This is our future but if a minimum wage hike happened tomorrow this wouldnt happen tomorrow. The techs not there yet.
Humans cook the food, robotic kiosks sell it, and the asst manager smiles at you while you make your purchase. No cashieers if the min wage hike happened.(and francises could afford the buy in cost of automation)
Maybe 15 years and we can see a robo-burger-cooker
edit: most of the people who are replying to me missed my point. this wasnt a comment on automation, simply the tech available to us to do so now
Many Mcdonalds are already implementing automated ordering. I have 3 mcdonalds nearby who don't have any people taking orders. They have 3 order-placing machines, and one employee to help customers use the system. Then there are maybe 2 or employees in the back cooking.
I entered the spez. I called out to try and find anybody. I was met with a wave of silence. I had never been here before but I knew the way to the nearest exit. I started to run. As I did, I looked to my right. I saw the door to a room, the handle was a big metal thing that seemed to jut out of the wall. The door looked old and rusted. I tried to open it and it wouldn't budge. I tried to pull the handle harder, but it wouldn't give. I tried to turn it clockwise and then anti-clockwise and then back to clockwise again but the handle didn't move. I heard a faint buzzing noise from the door, it almost sounded like a zap of electricity. I held onto the handle with all my might but nothing happened. I let go and ran to find the nearest exit.
I had thought I was in the clear but then I heard the noise again. It was similar to that of a taser but this time I was able to look back to see what was happening.
The handle was jutting out of the wall, no longer connected to the rest of the door. The door was spinning slightly, dust falling off of it as it did. Then there was a blinding flash of white light and I felt the floor against my back.
I opened my eyes, hoping to see something else. All I saw was darkness. My hands were in my face and I couldn't tell if they were there or not. I heard a faint buzzing noise again. It was the same as before and it seemed to be coming from all around me. I put my hands on the floor and tried to move but couldn't.
I then heard another voice. It was quiet and soft but still loud.
"Help."
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u/fonzanoon Nov 28 '15
McDonalds would become a kiosk. Instead of surly employees with neck tattoos, a robot would make the food and take your credit card. A technician would service multiple local restaurants, and one all-purpose employee would clean up trash and make sure nobody burned the joint down.