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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."
The computer directed me to round up all the neighborhood dogs - I'm just doing what it says, something about compensating for supply defeciency.
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We're going to need you to go ahead come in on saturday, Mmm..kay?
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Now we go from management that acts like robots, to robots that... well, you get the idea.
We don't need this kind of heavy-handed management, we need more people who can manage and work with their company's talent - just not tell them to move around, and generally act like robots.
I'd imagine that some chains WILL adopt this technology, but people will not take it well to be ordered around, hired and fired, and generally live their lives around the whims of some computer program.
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.
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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One of the problems with managers is that they are human and thus irrational. The computer will not play solitaire and go golfing instead of developing the end-year financials. It will not continually direct the weakest employees to the most critical jobs. Hell, it will probably be smart enough not to schedule the weakest employees on the businest days, which would be a fucking miracle compared, apparently, to most fast-food managers. It wouldn't schedule people for a training shift on those days, either.
By all means, let the computer run the people in this case. The people are mostly doing jobs that computer could do better anyway. McDonalds uses french-fry making robots in its busiest locations and they knock the humans right out of the box. The only reason they don't use them everywhere is that they're expensive to install and probably to maintain whereas when part-time workers get sick or sloppy you just shitcan them and bring in another underachiever. Regardless, sooner or later the only people actually working in fast food will be truck drivers and machine repairmen.
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Its not about how good or how bad this is. Its about how this is CHEAPER.
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Overheard behind the counter: "I'm sorry Bob, I can't allow you to jeopardize the restaurant. This conversation can serve no useful purpose. Goodbye."
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customers_suck threatens to get way funnier.
What, no breakfast at 11:30? I demand to speak to your manager!
I don't think you want--
I'm the customer, I'm always right, and I get speak to your manager now!
Okay, but I warned you...
BEEP BEEP FREE BEATINGS FOR MEAT BEINGS
Suddenly 'Hoboken, NJ versus Giant Robot' gets a lot funnier.
My problem with spontaneous human combustion is that never seems to happen to the "right" people.
But good luck getting a bunch of minimum wage high school emplyees to take directions from a computer. Managers have a hard enough time keeping them in line.
When I worked at a Sonic Drive In in 1985-6, we teens weren't any less lazy than the ones today (despite what we tell our teens now). While flipping burgers and dropping fries, I thought about my TRS-80 Model I and my new Model 100, and had a brainstorm. What if the girl at the microphone had a computer terminal, and hit a key for each food item, and then -- get this -- the order would display on a screen in the kitchen! I think I got a pretty good reception for the idea, since I'd just wowed my co-workers and the 20-something manager with the voice synthesizer I'd built for the Model 100.
But nobody thought it would work:
* The heat and grease would kill the electronics.
* Where do you mount a big ol' TV monitor?
* You'll never be able to train the cooks -- they can barely figure out the french fry timer.
* You'll never be able to train the order-takers -- they can barely figure out the bank of speaker switches.
* Special orders would be impossible.
* What's wrong with the slips of paper with orders written on them (#1 HB +O -P)?
I've often wondered two things. One, shouldn't I be a freakin' gazillionaire by now? Two, what's going to be the Next Big Thing in the minimum-wage kitchen. This may -- or may not -- be it.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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Step 1: Go to patent office
Step 2: Say what you just told us, and that you would like to copyright it.
Step 3: When officer opens his mouth to say "but that's already been...", quick add "no no, I meant on the internet!
Step 4: Profit.
Getting past the blogodreck, the real website of Hyperactive Bob is scary. "Managing Chaos (Humans Not Included)". This is a robot scheduling and control system from CMU, originally developed to manage groups of robots in factories. In this application, people are substituted for the robots to lower costs. Really. "The kitchen is quiet with Bob", because employees no longer need to talk. "80% reduction in training costs" for kitchen staff.
The system (which is physically a PC, some cameras, some touchscreens, and a link into the POS system) takes about two days to install. Then it watches everything for two weeks, while it learns the customer and staff patterns.
Then it takes over.
People should work. Machines should think.
It isn't that it's so difficult - it's that it's so easy. Fast food restaurants are pretty predictable environments for many of the tasks of a manager: Scheduling worker's shifts, determining how much of what needs to be cooked when, organizing inventory, etc. A simple program using a bit of historical data would be able to handle much of that, while an intelligent inventory management system can handle the rest.
For things that a computer cannot handle, such as dispute resolution or angry customers - a change in policy allowing employees a bit more latitude in handling customer complaints or a centralized number for disgruntled customers to contact would handle quite a bit. For disputes, a single trained mediator could handle disputes arising across a wide region. To keep employees from slacking off too much, random inspections (but at least once a week) could be done - someone goes into a place and spends an hour going over a checklist.
From an expense standpoint, this would also be cheaper - no manager salaries, no assistant manager salaries. From an employee standpoint, this would be a win: service employees would be able to take a more direct approach to handling customer issues, and would need to spend less time dealing with stupid dictator manager-guy at what is already a shit job.
Personally, I think this is exactly the kind of place to do this.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
As usual, the devil is in the details. Your little home computers DID have many of the problems you mentioned. They weren't built for the environment, so the environment was going to kill them. And where DO you mount that monitor? Sitting it atop a surface is a good way to get it knocked off. And how will an uneducated user manage to type fast enough to enter the order?
The people who are gazillionaires right now are the ones who found solutions to these problems. They built the ruggedized equipment, created the necessary ceiling mounts, developed the picture-based touch screens for the illiterate employees, and broke down the components of a special order to make it digestable by a computer. They then set out to prove these designs, fighting wave after wave of broken and scarred hardware. Ideas that seemed good at the time didn't work out in practice. Financial losses were heavy with the first models, but the kinks were slowly worked out.
Today, nearly every restaurant in existance uses a digital register system of some sort. All because enterprising individuals invested the hard work and the capital to make it happen.
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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.
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
So Bob is running the place, and everything is fine. But what do you do when the insanely irate customer demands to speak to the manager in hopes of shouting horribly at a stranger until a free Large Fries is obtained? Bob can't help with that.
That's when ELIZA takes over. Simply diect the customer to the nearby terminal.
>HELLO CUSTOMER
>is this the manager?
>WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS THE MANAGER?
>my frys were cold and I paid for this crap
AND WHY DO YOU THINK YOU PAID FOR THIS CRAP?
>i wanted hot firies but they was cold dammit!
>AND WHAT ELSE DO YOU THINK IS COLD DAMMIT?
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If you think people were pissed when the computer wouldn't let them get their CARS out of the garage, just wait until the computer won't let the PEOPLE out of the freezer because the restaraunt owner and the software vendor are mad at each other!
--
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Obviously, you never worked in a resturant when the computer system goes down. It's funny as heck. The wait staff has to learn how to count money (although their ability to calculate the tip is not diminished). The line cooks can't read handwriting (even in Spanish!) for orders. Bartenders stick their head in ice since they haven't memorized how do any drinks that isn't straight off the tap. Managers are threatening to fire anyone if their table leaves without paying.
:P
As Scotty said in Star Trek 3: "The more complex the plumbing, the easier to clog the drain." Ahh, matey, I welcome our computer overlods for a very different reason.
Since I got my computer science bachelor's and hadn't been able to find a programming job with it, I thought maybe I could take said degree and become a middle manager at a fast food joint or something. Only now it appears that job is going to be taken: BY A COMPUTER!
Screwed again.
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Most fast food places with >20 employees already use a computer to schedule staff based on sales volume and abilities. However, the systems are far from perfect. When I was in college, I was an assistant manager for a major fast food chain. The computer was used to generate a schedule that would then require heavy modification to be workable.
Anyways, I was responsible for scheduling for a year. Each employee had about 20 parameters you could enter, which included tasks that they could do, and a rating of their ability. However filling these fields in is more difficult than you think--for one, how an employee works when the manager is around is much different than how he works the rest of the time. Also, unless they assign one person to spend 40 hours a week observing people, it is impossible to get objective scores for any task. If you have 3 hours a week to make the schedule, with 80 employees, you don't have such time.
The other half of the problem is that sales volumes (kept track of by the POS system) only tell half of the story. Were the sales low because only 2/3 of the necessary 21 staff were scheduled? Well, the computer will schedule only 10 next time. Two employees can never work with each other without getting into a major screaming match and catfight--the computer does not have a way to set this criteria. Of course, you can build a system that takes many more inputs, and has overrides for special cases, like telling it that you got completely screwed due to lack of staff, but then these will just be abused by individual management to their own ends--a computer isn't a very good lie detector, and can't tell that Jeremy keeps pushing the panic button so that the next week he can sit around in the office with three of his employees (who are the only friends he has) and make straw swords with which to re-enact episode 2.
Computers are also pretty bad at phoning people on the day when 5 people called in sick (usually when there's some major attraction in town for the weekend, or it's a really nice sunny day) to find replacement workers. It's hard for a computer to appeal on an emotional level without making threats -- "Come in, or you're fired!" rarely works, making false promises does.
Finally, it's pretty damn hard to fire a $100 000 computer for being a complete moron of a manager. Humans are accountable because they usually have bills to pay, family that depends on them, etc. What are you going to do, sue the software vendor who made you sign a 20 page disclaimer first?