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McRobots - Coming Soon to a Restaurant Near You
[DallasNews] On a Fort Worth corner, near a freeway offramp, Joe Jasper combines one of the oldest restaurant chains with some of the newest foodservice technology. Jasper's McDonald's, one of 20 local outlets he owns, was the first in North Texas to install order entry kiosks - eye level, oversized touchscreens - that allow burger lovers to bypass the cashier and order and pay electronically. But it has nothing to do with overpriced order-takers. Read on! In the kitchen, workers log fewer steps as a conveyor belt silently transports neatly wrapped breakfast sandwiches to a bagger who stands a few paces away. You're next. Mr. Bagger! In the offing? Mobile ordering via smartphones in which "geofencing" and GPS allow restaurant employees to connect customers who order off site with their correct meal. Better get your tinfoil hat on, because the NSA will be tracking your movements and eating habits and providing the data on burger consumption to the life-insurance folks. The futuristic focus is part of a broader push at McDonald's, and within the restaurant industry, to court a new crop of diners who want better quality food and an experience that incorporates their gadgets. How about just better food and better service? Like Chick-Fil-A? Jasper installed four kiosks in his Airport Freeway location in December. Since then, nearly half of the consumers who come into the restaurant use the kiosks. Several said recently they find it easier than sometimes having to repeat the order to the cashier. Too many dialects.  "They're always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case," Secretary of Labor Ray Puzder previously said in an interview with Business Insider. Yet most restaurant operators bristle at the suggestion that the push to automation is really a bid to push workers out the door. "There is no labor efficiency with the kiosk," said Jasper, as a worker in a neatly pressed uniform helped a customer navigate the new technology. "We changed how we use the resources. The people delivering instead of being cashier - they now are bringing it to the table. You remember the restaurants with the little trains that carried your food to your location? They're coming back! "We've actually added people," he said. "It doesn't reduce crew [size], what it does is make them faster and more efficient. People say you're doing it to get rid of people. No that's not the case. Table delivery requires more staff." Puzder has made a connection between the campaign for an increased minimum wage and the lure of technology to restaurant operators. Officials with the Fight for $15 campaign declined to discuss the implications of increased technology on the workforce. Instead, they released a statement from Anggie Godoy, a Los Angeles-based McDonald's worker who is a leader in the campaign. "If fast-food companies could replace us with machines, they would have done it already," she said. It has nothing to do with cost-benefit ratios; it's all about worker oppression. "The fact is, we are in the service business and fast-food restaurants are always going to need good workers. Just ask McDonald's executives, who have said that machines won't replace employees because we are an important part of the company's success." And if you can't trust management, who would you trust? Posted by: Bobby 2017-05-08 |
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