Slashdot Mirror
Automation Coming To Restaurants, But Not Because of Minimum Wage Hikes
dcblogs writes: McDonald's this week told financial analysts of its plans to install self-ordering kiosks and mobile ordering at its restaurants. This news prompted the Wall Street Journal to editorialize, in " Minimum Wage Backfire," that while it may be true for McDonald's to say that its tech plans will improve customer experience, the move is also "a convenient way...to justify a reduction in the chain's global workforce." Minimum wage increase advocates, the Journal argued, are speeding along an automation backlash. But banks have long relied on ATMs, and grocery stores, including Walmart, have deployed self-service checkouts. In contrast, McDonald's hasn't changed its basic system of taking orders since its founding in the 1950s, said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, a research group focused on the restaurant industry. While mobile, kiosks and table ordering systems may help reduce labor costs, the automated self-serve technology is seen as an essential. It will take the stress out of ordering (lines) at fast food restaurants, and the wait for checks at more casual restaurants. It also helps with upselling and membership to loyalty programs. People who can order a drink refill off a tablet, instead of waving down waitstaff, may be more inclined to do so. Moreover, analysts say younger customers want self-service options.
I mean, maybe I'm just harking back to a past that exists only in my mind, but I seem to recall a time when the journal actually covered business in its pages, rather than regurgitating neoclassical economics talking points all-day every day, attempting to construe every single negative thing as a result of failing to religiously adhere to its principles.
Am I misremembering, and imagining the shift from kinda disagreeably right-leaning to fanatical?
Dammit, I want my 80s cyberpunk sit at the table, order from computer (bonus points for miniature holographic waiter who appears in middle of table), and food is delivered out of hidden conveyor system experience!
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Good staff knows how to upsell. That extra appetizer, dessert, beer, etc. Will it be as effective as static ads on UIs?
But basically any jobs replaced will be the most robot jobs in the first place. Just like long ago the most repetitious jobs on assembly lines were replaced by robots and now how the most repetitious jobs in IT are becoming automated. Book keeping is already automated but I can see a time when tax accounting coupled with rules engines and data mining could remove many corporate tax attorney and accounting jobs. Taxes are just rules after all. You might need a few people coverting the tax code to standard set of rules for an optimization engine but the days of large staff pouring over tax laws may be numbered.
But it is just like the WSJ to blame one insignificant factor. There are other factors at play and their coverage is not fair, balanced, well reasoned, or complete.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I want every person who is willing to work full-time to be able to earn at least poverty plus a dollar. I don't care about the skill level of the employee. In this way I ama liberal.
I recognize that you cannot put artificial price controls in place and expect the market to just absorb it. In this way I am a conservative.
My best solution is that we have a tax on the wealthiest to subsidize those that don't have skills that don't allow them to hit pverty level. Some subsidy that will bring lower earners up, but not discourage them from trying to make more.
My rationally is that people are much more productive than they were 100, 50 or even 20 years ago. Part of the promise of automation is that everyone would benefit... shorter hours... higher pay. This never materialized. So, I am fine with a level of socialism for those who are willing to work but cannot make ends meet.
-- MyLongNickName
Plenty of cheaper restaurants here in Japan - chain izakayas especially - have used terminals for ordering for years already. And while they certainly do it in part to reduce staff, the fact is that many customers like it. You don't have to flag down a waiter to place an order, and you can always see exactly what you've ordered, what dishes you've yet to receive and your current tab.
Also, the basic truth is that if your job can be automated, no wage level will compete with it in the long run. If you accept wage cuts to avoid being replaced by automation, you've only bought yourself a few years, and at a lower salary than you're worth at that.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
The problem with Minimum Wage Zealotry, is that the wage increase don't happen in a vacuum.
Why should a company ignore self-serve kiosks - which get cheaper with time - when confronted with employees who demand to get more expensive with time?
Also... we are talking about the lowest rung of employees. Minimum wage or close. Raise those wages, and what happens to everyone elses wages? They go up. Wages go up, prices go up. Wages won't pay for themselves - those increases WILL be passed on to consumers.
Maybe not immediately, but this is simply going to speed the process. This will put more people on welfare, food stamps and beholden to the Democratic party. (not that R is much better)
I have said for many years that, with an appropriate restaurant-savvy partner, I'd like to open an automated restaurant. In-table PC's to order things, with card-readers.
I don't want to wait for the waiter to come over until I can order a drink. I might have driven a long way and be gasping of thirst before I care about a menu. Press, press, done before I've even taken my coat off.
I want to see the whole menu. The ingredients. A picture. The price. The associated special offers. Does it have pepper on it? A fully interactive menu would be great, and not be covered in the gravy-stains of the last patron, or have bits scribbled out on it. Plus, when something is no longer available, bam, you can't order it. I could even press the "I have an allergy button" and see if anything is incompatible with that without relying on the waiter to run back and forth to the kitchen.
I might want to tip one member of staff, but not know their name (or they happen to have finished their shift by then). Press "tip", select staff member photo (or select "All staff"), type in a reason, swipe card, done. And no arguments over who I intended it for.
I might well want to pay for my own stuff and not have to wait for the end of the meal and argue with friends. Or order a slice of cake to take home as a last minute thought after I've paid. Or split the bill via various common calculations. Or even tag five items as what John has to pay and let him pay that off the bill because he has to leave early. Press, press, swipe. Done.
I might wall desire a human to talk to, if something cocks up. Big green help button lights up the table, which summons a waiter, much like airplane call buttons. The waiter still has to be around to shuttle things from the kitchen, and this way seems easier - and politer - than having to flag him down as he passes with a table full of plates. Press, done.
I might well decide to change the order mid-flow. So long as the kitchen hasn't started on it yet, why not? Until the order's locked in, I can alter it. And I can even "lock" certain portions if one person at the table wants the starter now while the others only want mains and want to argue over it. Press, press, done.
I might want to pay first, or pay once I've eaten everything. I can choose.
I might want to buy some wifi access, or get a code for the toilet (I disagree with limiting toilets to paying customers only, except on an honesty agreement, but some places do just that and your receipt contains your code for the toilet), or donate to the charity associated with the restaurant, or buy the chef's recipe book. Press, press, swipe, done.
I might want to move tables mid-order, or take my drinks outside. Press, press, done and the waiters and kitchen automatically know where I am.
The back-end? The waiters still wait. The bar tabs are still on the EPOS. The kitchen still gets a ticket about what table wants what. And those that want manual service press one button.
We've already automated every part of the experience but the customer's.
There was a spirited discussion yesterday about what's happened to the economy since domestic manufacturing got wiped out. Now that the only things we make in the US at any scale are aircraft, military equipment and cars, all the people who used to have nice stable manufacturing jobs were moved to corporate and service jobs. Then routine corporate work was automated, offshored and outsourced. No problem, you say, they can always work service jobs. Well, now service jobs are being automated.
No one is addressing this problem -- there are millions of people smack in the mean of the IQ scale with no hope of becoming decent knowledge workers. The political climate paints everyone who can't find work as a lazy "welfare queen." How does the calculus change when you have a huge portion, and eventually a majority, of people with no way to support themselves and no hope of getting one of the "new economy" jobs? People like to say that people will just adapt, or the market will take care of it, but I think this is one case where the market would really fail. People in the techie set like to learn new things, and assume everyone else does. People in the factory worker or service set go to their job, do exactly what is required of them, and go home. I realize I sound mean, but it's the truth. There is no feasible way to retrain a factory worker who has been doing the same job the same way for 20 years and put him in a job that will produce the same income.
Automation is great, and it's cool what we can do now...I just think it will eventually trigger a lot of very bad unintended consequences.
Corporations are already leaving the United States -- and good riddance to them. Any company that doesn't want to pay US taxes and employ US citizens shouldn't be permitted to do business in the US. Citizenship should come with responsibilities as well as rights. One of those responsibilities is looking out for your fellow citizens.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Because Bay Area is typical middle class neighborhood /sarcasm.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"So we should retain inefficient practices and increase costs to the consumer because otherwise we'll have a glut of unemployed low-skill workers that may commit crimes?"
Yes. The thing that's different about the business climate now is that business owners are just pocketing the extra profits that removing employees from the workforce gives them. Back in the 50s, 60s, 70s -- before large scale automation and computerization -- businesses had big labor expenses but somehow managed to stay in business. Now instead of just dealing with a lower profit, they pass every single cost increase on to the consumer and cry about how they're hurting because of it. Part of that is because, at least with public companies, there's a constant thirst for ever-increasing profit at the expense of everything else.
This is why I'm not a big fan of the job-creating small business entrepreneur that gets held up as a paragon of virtue and all things right. Small business owners complain way too much about things like taxes, when in reality, they have the best deal in the world going. Any small business owner can funnel nearly 100% of his personal expenses through his business and pay lower tax rates as a result. Wage-earners can't do that -- wages are taxed at regular income rates and there are a limited number of deductions available. Business owners can just say they bought their personal car for their business, their computer, their "business meals", etc. and it reduces the amount of income the business needs to pay taxes on. So I'm not exactly sympathetic when a small business owner complains about how much it costs to employ someone who is helping him make money.
A person rendered unemployable by ordering kiosks is a victim of an education system that ill-prepared them to contribute to society, and the solution isn't to protect their low/no-skill jobs.
Not everyone is educable. Not everyone has value to society that's sufficient for them to support themselves.
Quote from headline -- " It will take the stress out of ordering (lines) at fast food restaurants..."
Yea, right. Just another place where we will be standing for 10 minutes behind some clueless ID10T trying to figure out how to use the kiosk, just like at the Walmarts with the self service checkouts.
If you know how to use the kiosks, they are fast and easy. But you always get someone who is clueless and cannot comprehend simple instructions on the screen holding you up in line.
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
While I agree with you that automation is good for the economy as a whole (any increase in productivity is an increase in the amount of wealth that can be generated) you're overestimating the skill sets of some people.
There are people who aren't qualified for much more than a simple job and lack the drive or perhaps even the capacity to learn something better, or perhaps the amount of effort that must be expended to train them does not generate a net increase in wealth.
As automation gets better, the types of jobs that can be automated grows and the people who are the least able to acquire the types of skills that cannot yet be automated find themselves in a position where there isn't a lot that they can do or where they need to build a completely new skill set as their previous one is no longer useful.
Perhaps by the time this becomes a large enough problem, automation will have made our productivity and wealth generation sufficient that we can just provide everyone the resources they need to live off of while they acquire a new skill set, but it always comes back to the problem of making sure people aren't free loading. Perhaps it just comes down to doing it anyway because the alternative is spending even more resources to police and arrest those people who do turn to crime.
Assume that the minimum wage is raised to $15/hr and McDonald's decides not to automate. Many of the current minimum wage workers will be replaced with an equal or smaller number of workers who are more productive. The guys holding the picket signs and protesting will most likely not benefit from the raise. They will have to compete with a larger pool of skilled applicants who will work harder and smarter to get the job done. The people laid off or replaced will find that the minimum wage raise they protested so hard for cost them their job and strains their ability to keep up with what unemployment and welfare pays as cost increase to the balance the new wages.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
How the hell this even gets marks as informative is beyond me.
For you naysayers who want to mark down my post, my list has as many facts as the parent, if that tells you anything.
"confronted with employees who demand to get more expensive with time?"
But they are not. Sure, there may be a demand for a larger number of dollars but those dollars have lost value over time. Wages have not increased with inflation. If anything workers are trying to get back some of what they used to make in real value.
"Why should a company ignore self-serve kiosks"
They shouldn't. The people running the company''s job is to maximize profit. Unfortunately that does mean that as labor replacing technologies become less expensive jobs do go away.
What I think has been happening is the price of automation solutions (including these kiosks) has been dropping while there capabilities have been increasing for decades now. We only kept the jobs we have because wages (REAL wages, as in what that money can buy) have been dropping. It dropped enough to put minimum wage workers into the poverty category a long time ago and now it is dropping to the point that a person can't really survive on it. So, something has to give.
So, minimum wage goes up (in terms of dollar amount), kiosks overtake workers as cheap labor and jobs are eliminated. The alternative really wasn't going to be any better. What we need is an adjustment. We need to take the remaining jobs which cannot be automated and spread them out differently. We need a society where greater people work a fewer number of hours per person. This way the same amount of work gets spread among more jobs. We need a society where those hours worked are valued higher so that a person can live on those fewer hours. That shouldn't be such a radical idea. Think about it, every minute you give to some company is time out of your life. We only get one life (that anyone can prove anyway). That makes each minute priceless!
Now, some might argue that those higher wages will make living more costly as the expense must be passed to the consumer. Remember though, prices are set to maximize profit. Raise the price of a burger you make more per burger but you sell fewer. Lower the price you sell more of them but make less off of each. Somewhere there is a best price point that balances those factors to make the most money. Notice what's NOT in that formula... the price of labor! The only way that labor costs (or supplies, etc...) factor in is if the demand is so low and those costs so high that the only possible profit is very small before nobody buys any. If a business is truly operating in that area it is already in trouble! It is probably going to fail regardless of what the minimum wage does! This is not the point where McDonalds for example is operating at. Where would the money come from? I would suggest looking at executive salarys. People who don't even produce anything! Also, don't stop at the salarys, what kind of expensive conferences and other perks are they spending money on?
So how do we get to this world where easily automated jobs are and the world enjoys this saved labor by working less while still prospering? I have no idea. I wish I knew.