Slashdot Mirror
Computer Manages Restaurant Workers
9x320 writes "The chicken restaurant chain Zaxby's has started to use computers with software by Hyperactive Technologies to direct employees what to do and when to do it, and to decide how many should come to work. The computer works through the use of sensors, analysis of historic data, and touchscreens. The article compares the software to that in a science fiction novel published only just a few years ago, except the computer, Manna, also carried a voice synthesizer."
When I read Manna I thought it was more a work of horror then sci-fi kind of like Event Horizon, now it's coming true, very scary indeed.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Zehrs (a local supermarket chain in southern ontario) attempted to use software to schedule employee shifts back in the late 90's while I was lucky enough to work there. It ended up being a massively confusing schedule with no logic to it, and was constantly over/under staffing shifts. No software out there is capable of predicting work conditions as well as someone who has experience.
All the past data and statistics will not prepare you for the shopping frenzy that occurs when a thunderstorm hits. I recall 20-30% increase in customer volume when the weather was poor. That's just one outside factor... the software maybe able to account for that by checking the weather forecast, but it can't account for other factors like a show being canceled on TV, or a construction detour increasing or decreasing customer volume.
I say it didn't work in 1998, I highly doubt it'll work in 2006. The problem cannot be defined as a formula, and until it can, no computer will be able to solve it.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I hate to break it to you, but the reason that it's so robotic isn't because the chains like it that way, it's because customers prefer it that way.
One of the reasons that fast food chains were so popular in the beginning was because the food was prepared the same way no matter where someone went. It might not have been the greatest food on earth, but it was consistent. It's much the same way today - otherwise, why would fast food restaurants stay so popular? There are thousands of places to eat when traveling, so why would people go to Burger King, Wendys, KFC (whatever that means nowdays) or any other fast food place when there are far better places to eat?
When I worked at McDonalds a bunch of years ago, our manager decided to change the menu a little: we would put lettuce on hamburgers, Mac sauce on Filets, anything that the customer wanted. Some customers loved it. McDonalds hated it. Most customers ordered exactly what they were used to. McDonalds eventually heard about it and clamped down (changes to their menu were forbidden in the franchise agreement).
Were customers happer about the change? It didn't seem so. They seemed more confused than anything - they knew what they wanted when they came in and they weren't really thinking about what they wanted on it.
we need more people who can manage and work with their company's talent
Talent? We're talking about fast food here.
The only reason they have people working in the back of a McDonalds/Zaxbys/whatever is because people are cheaper than machines. It's tough to program a robot to assemble burgers effeciently (dealing with mis-shapen patties, etc.).
The only reason that any of those people have jobs is because the cost of the machine that would replace them, costs more than the stream of cash that they're paid. (That is to say, the present value of the income stream which is their salary, is less than the upfront purchase cost plus maintaince costs of a machine.)
When machines get better at doing things, so that they're the cheaper option, they do the jobs instead of people.
What's ironic here is that it's the manager's job that's being computerized before the burger-boy's one.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
So will they be 3 Laws compliant and if so, for how long? ;)
Fry making robots? I've haven't seen those but at my closest McDonalds they have an automated drink filling machine for the drive-thru. Its connected to the order system so when someone orders a #4 with a coke a cup is automatically droped out, filled with ice and soda and is ready for serving to a customer.
I always wondered if there were other automated things at McDonalds and now I know.
I rarely eat fast food....hell, I rarely eat at chain restaurants, but, have more in the past year due to being displaced by katrina. In New Orleans, you have a far larger number of locally owned restaurants...and though there are some chains...they are local chains. I lived near Lakeview...and there wasn't a McD's for miles from me.
Anyway, I've had to move and live around a lot since then..and have had to eat some fast food more than I've eaten in years. I was amazed at things. The Burger Kind whopper...when did that fucker shrink down so much? I remember when Wendy's used to resemble a real home made burger a bit more.
About the only fast foods I hit ever are the occasionally Taco Bell....and Popeye's fried chicken. And I can only take just so much of those. With the hits I've had to make at FF joints recently...I ask myself, why in the HELL do so many people eat at these places all the time? Do people not know what good food is any more? Does anyone not know how to took a home cooked meal any more?
But, then, I got some answers. No, people don't know how to cook. Hell, I've had to teach my last few girlfriend's how to cook. I stayed with a married friend of mine, and I was shocked to see how many nights of the week she brought home fast food for her and the 2 kids. I know working parents are busy, but, c'mon, I grew up with working parents, and we had home cooked meals almost every night...some fresh, some from leftovers. Hell one reason I know how to cook, is when I got old enough, Mom had me in there to help cook.
I LOVE to dine out, don't get me wrong, but, rather than nickle and dime it (and it isn't really that cheap anymore) on fast food, I'd much rather save up, and go out on a weekend night, and drop some real cash at a restaurant with real seats, china, wait staff....and get this, real FOOD!! And I don't mean at a chain restaurant like TGIF or Bennegan's...
I dunno...my eyes were opened...I had no idea the food problem was so bad with the general populace...no wonder people and their kids are so fat and in poor health....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Management is more than telling people what to do, and when to do it - you need to act as a leader as well as a stablizing force in the workplace. A PC running this slave-driver software does neither.
Our assistant pastor explained this to me, his weekday job was managing a Wendy's. I remarked that was a strange choice for a man with his seminary education. He replied not at all, that to his way of thinking, it was mainly a ministry to his employees. Although his Wendy's was at least as good as any other Wendy's, he had hired quite a collection of people who needed a second, third, or fourth chance. It was all people skills, and practically nothing an MBA would want to get involved with on a daily basis.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
It would be fun to see how they solved the hard part of of predicting staffing needs in restaurants - "special events".
... Tuesdays tend to be less than half the sales of a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. However, there are outside things that interfere with the normal ebb and flow of this day-in and day-out grind. For example:
... so it had better be configurable!
... so it has an an interference pattern that covers a seven year span. Gathering sales information to properly predict that may take 7+ years of sales data.
... then they have truly done a wondrous thing ... because I was not smart enough to figure out how to do it when I tried in 2002.
Sales in a restaurant are semi-predictable in normal weeks
Thanksgiving is defined to occur on a the fourth Thursday in November (in the U.S.), so the before and after spike in sales (and choosing to close the restaurant on Thanksgiving Day itself) can be predicted. Of course, Thanksgiving in Canada is a different day
Christmas Day is always on December 25, but it falls on Monday, this year, Tuesday in 2008, and so it
Easter always falls on a Sunday, but it drifts as much as a month. If your restaurant always closes on Easter, then it becomes easy, but that is not an option for family buffet restaurants.
Superbowl always falls on a Sunday, an tries to be on the same day each year, but it has drifted in the recent past, so it can be as hard to figure out as Easter.
Then there are the one-off special events that no one can predict. What computer could predict that Thursday, May 14, 1998 was going to be one of the highest sales day of the entire year for every U.S. pizza delivery chain? Thursdays are not as "dead" as Tuesdays, but they rarely if every compare to the sales on a Friday night.
That particular Thursday, however, was the day that the series finale of Seinfeld premeired.
If they have figured out how to predict the "Seinfeld"
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
The biggest problem in your restaurant is management. Servers who don't know how to write a hard check, and bartenders who don't know how to mix drinks?
This computer system should be usefull in restaurants exactly like the ones you worked in. In a place like that, do you really think management is getting optimum use of their staff?
You can always retort an innovation with the statement "What if that (said innovation) breaks. then where will we be?" I guess the answer is Amish.
And I've yet to see an instance where someone was punished for thinking creatively and solving a real problem that needed to be solved.
Your whole corporate career was a festival of creativity and problem solving, a claim which flies in the face of the recorded experiences of award winning journalists and authors and the day-to-day experiences of millions upon millions of other current and former corporate employees at all levels of both work and management. Not only that, your experiences were perfectly consistent throughout your career and never once, not even ONE TIME did anything different happen. Sorry. You just lost all of your credibility.
And please, give me an example of where a person was drummed out of a job because a manager didn't like their degree??
I've seen people fired because the manager didn't like their car. Please.
SHOULD matter to a corporation
People who invest their professional expertise to help the corporation succeed. People should always be first. The money happens automatically.
MAKES me one of those smart, highly talented people I mentioned before.
I had jobs where I did the work of ten people in half the time for a third the cost. I had jobs where I improved efficiency in double and triple-figures, leading to substantial top line revenue increases quarter over quarter. I had jobs where I personally established multiple-department programs to increase the level of knowledge about the technologies we were using. Outside of the W-4 bullshit, I have personally and single-handedly delivered finished professional commercial products from a blank sheet of paper to unit sales. I have accumulated knowledge within several industries that exceeds that of the people who are being regularly paid for their expertise. I've done it better, faster and less expensively from the very instant I accepted my first full time job.
And there has been precisely one job where I did not find myself beset with some bloated, donut-stuffing, meeting-scheduling, salad-ordering assfuck questioning my knowledge, requiring constant justifications and depriving both myself and the people I was working with of the tools and resources we needed to get our jobs done properly. They followed productive people around like the faint persistent aroma of fresh dogshit smeared on their shoes, fucking up every single thing they touched. I watched every single professional person I worked with screwed out of benefits, promotions, raises, jobs and careers.
It's not about success or skills or money or anything else. It's about cruelty. It's about inflicting pain and suffering on other people because they can. It's that simple.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.