
Wendy's plans to replace workers with self-service kiosks - ryan_j_naughton
http://abc7ny.com/business/wendys-to-replace-workers-with-machines/1342591/
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james_pm
This is already happening at McDonald's in Canada. It's a far superior system
with larger touchscreens allowing for multiple ordering stations. Staff
concentrates on filling orders instead of struggling to take orders where
language and noise is a constant problem.

For those who want to order with a human, there are a couple of registers for
that. It won't be long before talking to a human to order seems old fashioned.

This is also a prime example of how speech interfaces are not the solution to
everything. Ordering fast food on a touch screen takes seconds vs. talking to
a human being. A chat bot would have been terrible in this case, although I'm
sure some restaurants will experiment with it (perhaps at the drive thru).

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gerpsh
>Ordering fast food on a touch screen takes seconds vs. talking to a human
being.

Does it though? Verbalizing my order to a person who is highly proficient in
using the ordering interface has always been quicker than having to manually
find the items I want and enter them.

I can see how this could reduce error, but I think this has more to do with
cutting costs than adding efficiency to the ordering process.

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throwaway2016a
If...

\- You have good eyesight and can see the menu behind the counter

\- You speak the same language as the order taker or they speak your's

\- The person behind the counter actually is proficient at the machine

Then you run into the situation where over time people get better at using the
kiosk. And much like lines to get subway cards (something replaced by kiosks
in Boston long ago), if you get stuck behind someone who is really slow at
using it there are usually more kiosks you can move to.

It worked in...

\- Subway systems

\- Self checkout at grocery stores

\- Bank ATMs

Especially that last one. Pretty much the only time I use an actual teller at
an ATM is if I need a cashier's check.

I think in fast food it is a bit of a foregone conclusion.

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intopieces
>It worked in Self checkout at grocery stores.

It's still too soon to say those self-checkout machines are a success. There
are a few stores (Albertson's, Costco) that have eliminated them entirely, a
few large retailers have scaled them back.

Mostly, the assumption was that ringing up items is easy enough for even
untrained customers to do it, and that assumption has proved only partly
correct. Every time (and I do mean _every_ time) I've stood in line to use
them, 1+ customers have needed assistance from a worker (alcohol, voiding an
item, price discrepancy, item won't scan, can't find the picture, weird
detection on the bag-side...).

Maybe when the generation that grew up with iPads becomes the eldest we'll see
full self-checkout implementation, but for now the average customer is not
equipped to effectively utilize the technology.

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throwaway2016a
That's interesting. Here if I'm waiting in line it's usually in a situation
where the human checkout counters have lines as well. I like the Walmart
model... here they have six self-checkouts but one line. So if you're first in
line you go to the first one that frees up. Very much superior to having one
line per self-checkout.

And in those situations if one backs up you still have at least one
alternative that is faster.

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op00to
This is great. I love ordering via kiosk at Wawa convienence stores in the
Philanthropic area. No misunderstandings, you can easily see what's available
on the menu at that moment, and generally the ordering process moves a lot
quicker since there's more parallelism. This is perfect for fast food.

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reustle
Seriously. I ate so many hoagies from wawa in high school that I had my
ordering technique down to a science. I went from screen 1 to printing receipt
in 10-12 seconds every time. It really threw me off when they'd add/remove a
item in menu and things would reflow slightly.

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jbuzbee
I recently saw these at several fast-food outlets in New Zealand and
Australia. Worked fine and there was less chance of a screwed up order. As the
article says, this is a direct consequence of raising the minimum wage higher
than the market rate. For every action, there is an equal and opposite
reaction...

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milhous
While everyone's heard the minimum wage-automation argument many times over,
wasn't POS kiosks the inevitable next step regardless of wages? Sheetz and
Wawa have been doing this for decades in the Northeast US, so why hasn't
McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, etc followed suit? Is it due to public
pressure, and/or the cost of deploying infrastructure?

~~~
jbuzbee
The equation is pretty direct. When the cost of an employee is greater than
the value the employee brings to the organization, something has to change or
else the organization goes out of business. I'm not familiar with Sheetz and
Wawa, but maybe these companies felt that the novelty or accuracy of Kiosks
brought additional customers in, justifying their expense even with a low
labor cost. Other companies may not have felt so. But now that minimum wages
are being pushed higher, these companies are going to re-evaluate the cost vs.
value equation. When the local Dairy Queen in Fresno, is forced to pay a High
School kid a rate of $31,000 a year to hand out soft-serve ice-cream cones,
you can bet that the owner is looking at self-serve options...

[edit for typo]

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transfire
The min wage raise is just being used as cover. This was bound to happen
eventually regardless.

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reustle
It definitely would have happened regardless, but this sure gave them a good
reason to invest more. The straw that broke the camel's back, you could say.

~~~
pessimizer
One of the benefits of a high minimum wage. Why develop new technology when
slaves are cheap?

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wink
Fun story. I was at the Madrid airport a while ago and did exactly this: used
a kiosk in a McDonald's to order my stuff - hooray for no more language issues
(my Spanish is really bad, I was tired, and the kiosk was something new I
hadn't seen anywhere).

When my order was ready - what did they do? Call out the numbers - in spanish,
and not with a very clear/easily recognizable/slow pronunciation. Plan foiled.

In the end I did get my meal by asking if I had understood the called out
number correctly, but unless you also solve some other problems, this is not
as perfect as it sounds ;)

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omilu
Japan has had this for ages, a vending machine takes your money, you select
what you want, take the printed receipt to the chef and they cook your food.
Works great.

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Overtonwindow
Unpopular opinion: I've been advocating for order kiosks in fast food
establishments for 10 years. Why? Language barriers, and order accuracy. I
think having A kiosk for those who wish to order in any language, or to
improve accuracy, should be allowed. I hate to see the day that all workers
are replaced by kiosks, but I am pulled by the idea of less barriers to
ordering.

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neillyons
Ordering via a machine is quite common in cheaper Japanese restaurants in
Japan. I think it is a hygiene law where staff who touch money can't prepare
food so the customer pays at a machine and hands the staff the meal tickets.

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nsxwolf
So you touch your money, then you touch the ticket with the hands that touched
the money, then they take the ticket and prepare the food with the hand that
took the ticket that touched the hand that touched the money?

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ourmandave
When will they catch up with Taco Bell who has order ahead and pay on their
phone app?

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baron816
They should use a chatbot so no one has to download an app. I don't want a
Wendy's/Taco Bell app on my phone.

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cmdrfred
Or you know a webpage, why is everyone so scared of the browser?

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spriggan3
Happening everywhere in the world, cashiers replaced by automatic cash
registers the client need to operate himself in supermarkets, self-service
kiosks at MacDo, even in a french bakery I saw one...

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nsxwolf
The more I use the "automatic" checkouts at the grocery store the more I am
convinced they are for suckers. They just shift a ton of labor onto me and
aren't any faster. Employee intervention is required for many steps (alcohol
purchases, system thinks you didn't bag the right item, receipt tape runs out,
etc).

Soon the machine will start handing you a mop and telling you there's a
cleanup in aisle 4.

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mcphage
> The more I use the "automatic" checkouts at the grocery store the more I am
> convinced they are for suckers. They just shift a ton of labor onto me and
> aren't any faster.

Many years ago, stores as a whole would have employees who you told what you
wanted, and they'd get it for you. When they switched to stores where you
collect your own items, many of the same things were true—they were shifting
work onto the customer, and weren't faster. However, they allow that work to
be done a lot more in parallel (since there are lots of customers picking out
their own items), and let customers have a lot more control over what they
bought and how much they paid. So overall, they were a plus, and very few
stores these days require you to place an order with the people working there.

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umeboshi
Why is this so groundbreaking? I recall Arby's of all chains, testing this out
in 1993-94 in Florida, it was like an airport kiosk touchscreen that you
ordered thru.

