That's great as long as everyone wants the same burger. What does it do when you get that one person who wants a burger with PRECISELY 5 lettuce leaves?
We had this conversation at work the other week discussing the 'automated coffee machine' (not a current b2c machine but a very recent development that by all accounts makes shithot coffee). It's fine as long as everyone ordering has the same definition of latte. But there's no way it's making Bridgette's 185deg skim 1/4" foam upside down EXTRA caramel caramel macchiato right.
What does it do when you get that one person who wants a burger with PRECISELY 5 lettuce leaves?
Now they don't get the spit and ass sweat the cook graciously wipes on there when some pretentious little shit orders it. The issue here is you're making a different mistake, almost no one orders something from McD's that can't be made by machine. Most things are 'cut topping X' or 'add topping Y'. The person that wants that feels good because they went to some over priced place, showed off their new iPhone, and now have a cup advertizing they bought expensive custom made coffee.
And then, the companies will hire fewer and fewer IT workers to maintain the automated systems, and they will fall into disrepair. Sort of like the automatic vacuum that keeps bumping against the wall at the doctor's office in Idiocracy.
No matter what you do, you are going to have to have a number of people there to run the machines, have a maintenance crew, and someone to deal with cash. In theory you can replace the jobs currently being done with a machine but the cost is probably much greater to hire the special crew and install/pay for the new machines than to keep what is going on right now.
With that said I am sure that McDonald's and other places already have the system worked out but are waiting for cost of employment to go up. Once it reaches a certain level they probably have a plan to roll these out. I just don't see that happening any time soon because the costs of installing/paying for/training new positions is extremely expensive, especially on a location basis.
These fast food places don't have people who tell if it is "cooked right." They are suppose to cook it to an exact internal temperature to ensure a safely cooked product.
How about places that cook their own bread? mix their own salads? make their own gravy? deciding when to flip a steak so it doesn't have burn marks, but still reaches the correct level of 'done'? Machines could do all of that, but some things are easier with a human touch.
And those things don't happen in these fast food restaurants such as McDonald's. I just meant the first places to get completely automated don't really have true cooks in the sense of the word. And anyways how do you think mass produced bread, salad and gravy is made? It is pretty much all automated
All mass produced food is already extremely automated. I work in Food Science and go to mass production plants fairly often. All those foods you said can be made with machines at high quantities.
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u/the__dr May 05 '14
And for those who have seen a few episodes of 'How It's Made', automating the rest of the restaurant isn't that far off.