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."

Comments

Very scary

[afidel]

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.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Didn't work in 1998

[Quasar1999]

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.

Re:Didn't work in 1998

[PitaBred]

You don't know much about fuzzy logic, do you? You just said yourself a 20-30% increase in volume happens when a thunderstorm hits. But that's not always something that's predicted, even by the smartest manager. Or even the weatherman. It's just something that you'll have to deal with when the time comes. But if the system has data from the past 5 or 6 years of staffing and sales volumes, I'd bet that it'll be able to tell that, say, the 2nd week of April needs a few more people per shift than the first week of December (or whatever). I've had managers that scheduled things so we were overstaffed or understaffed. Or completely forgot that I wasn't able to make it in on Monday afternoons and scheduled me anyway. All that the system really needs to do is be able to take manual changes EASILY, handle them GRACEFULLY, and LEARN from those changes. After you get that done... well, the sky's the limit. Scheduling is very hard. Very few managers can do it reliably. I'd take a machine that's well designed over about 90% of the people that I have had write my schedules before.

Re:Didn't work in 1998

[Jtheletter]

But your hu-mon manager could somehow presciently account for all the rare cases you mentioned? I assume when there was something like a severe weather rush the manager picked up the phone and called off-duty employees to ask them to help, what prevents the store manager in the computer-run scenario from doing the same? Or hell, there could be an option on the screen "Recruit 'X' off-duty employees" and the system calls them and has them punch 1 for "I'll be right there" or 2 for "screw you Chad Vader, I'm not working Saturday night."

This system only removes the human element from the up front scheduling task, but it doesn't replace the shift manager position, there is still a person running things who can make decisions for rare cases.

No software out there is capable of predicting work conditions as well as someone who has experience.

Except that software and hardware have come a long ways since the mid 90s, and with proper "training" by an experienced manager the system could be taught the "intuition" that person knows, and do things like you suggested - monitoring weather and scheduling appropriately. Blizzard predicted this week? Past register data shows a 45% increase in customers starting 36 hours before the storm, better add 2 extra employees etc. Prediciton will never be 100%, but then, it's not with a human manager either, and if they really need another employee for some reason, the manager can still pick up the phone himself.

Re:Great...

[OldeTimeGeek]

Fast food service is nothing but robotic work already, and that's the way the chains like it.

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.

Re:Great...

[Kadin2048]

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.

Re:Great...

[siriuskase]

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.