Is this the beginning of "...and so it begins..."???

[mjr]

Carl's Jr CEO wants to try out a fully-automated restaurant...


http://kfor.com/2016/03/17/carls-jr-...-see-a-person/

[Greenday]

Bit of a no-shit move. When has a CEO making a move to increase net profits EVER been a surprise? All the outrage will be for nothing and people will go there anyway.

[wolfie]

Clearly these high-powered executives don't understand what the workers actually DO. The "grill-bot" won't be able to clean the place, deal with "exception conditions" (e.g. customer complaints), recognize when things are getting out of hand and call the police, etc.

When you have real live workers and something "goes south" (customer projectile vomits), you can pull a couple people off behind-the-counter duties to clean it up. This setup would probably have (at most) one employee to do cleaning - no "surge capacity" unless you count the manager (and since when do fast food managers pitch in to help with the dirty jobs?).

I'm guessing that the automated restaurant won't last long before getting shut down by the health department.

[Aragarthiel]

I'm guessing that the automated restaurant won't last long before getting shut down by the health department.

That's what I'm thinking. The machines won't know if a fly lands on a burger and accidentally gets cooked into it, or if something has spoiled despite being within its expiration date (because we know it happens). Machines have no immediate way to deal with complaints of incorrect or missing food (say, a burger gets dropped in transit and the machine doesn't realize it) beyond offering a replacement to anyone who asks.

Now, machines ARE harder to scam for a year's worth of free food, but that also means the customers are likely going to escalate it to an actual person, who will have little to no way to verify if the customer is lying about their fries being spilled all over the counter.

The design really is set up to fail.

[SkullKing]

I feel that most of these things can be solved with good engineering.

[TheHuckster]

I highly doubt the restaurant is going to be fully-automated the same way, say, Redbox is. When they say "customers won't see anybody" they very likely mean there won't be anyone to take their order and the food will arrive on a conveyor belt or something.

Behind the scenes, I would expect there to be one, maybe two people, manning the back, making sure the robots are actually working and there aren't any problems. Far less people needed, for sure, and one that probably requires a different skillset (e.g. mechanical training in case the robots need repair).

In the future, as the technology improves, sure. I could see there being more fully automated restaurants that have a single maintenance engineer who is responsible for multiple restaurants in the vicinity.

And, yes, minimum wage increase or not, this is the future of fast food. The robotic technology is improving and getting less expensive, which is really making this a more viable option.

[Jetfire]

Yeah I don't see EVERYONE being laid off; but I do see there being fewer employees.

But at the same time, many of these locations can't really cut employees much more as is.

There's basically a McDs express in the downtown mall here; it's dead after 5 like downtown in general. As far as I can tell, they are already running with at most 3 people in the early evening preclose time; automation might cut that down to 2 I suppose but going below 2 would be tough.

[HYHYBT]

(and since when do fast food managers pitch in to help with the dirty jobs?)

Your experience must be vastly different than mine.

[Shangri-laschild]

This guy is an idiot. Everyone was so excited when we got an automated phone tree put in at work on the switchboard. Sure it's nice but option 1 is for Admissions and I still get quite a few calls from people who want to be transferred to admissions. They can only get to me if they go through the phone tree but the second they hear it starting, they press 0. There are plenty of people who don't want to deal with a setup like this.
His theory that you'll never see a person is wrong. What happens if you need to complain about your food? The automated system definitely won't take that away. What if there is a spill by one of the tables? Not to mention what happens if the system goes down? There has to be backup registers that a person can run unless you want to shut the store down till it's fixed. This guy doesn't understand people or technology. But really it's going to be like with McDonalds automated ordering systems. It's going to result in less employees. How often has the person taking orders at a fast food restaurant not also been needed for other things? Maybe a person or two each store gets cut and then he has to hire more people to be on hand for fixing and upkeep of the systems. And all of that is if it even lasts which it probably won't. Enough customers aren't going to like this and there is a reason why grocery stores have both types of lanes and the self scan option can't even function without a human there to run them anyway.

[cindybubbles]

But really it's going to be like with McDonalds automated ordering systems. It's going to result in less employees. How often has the person taking orders at a fast food restaurant not also been needed for other things? Maybe a person or two each store gets cut and then he has to hire more people to be on hand for fixing and upkeep of the systems. And all of that is if it even lasts which it probably won't. Enough customers aren't going to like this and there is a reason why grocery stores have both types of lanes and the self scan option can't even function without a human there to run them anyway.

This. When I tried to use the SCOs to scan packages of toilet paper, I had to page the attendant for help because I had problems bagging the packages. It came to a point where the attendant told me that I will always have problems using the SCOs to scan toilet paper, and that I would have to use the regular, manned, checkout lanes instead.

So in the case of Carl Jr.'s, it looks like it's going to be fewer minimum-wage employees and more higher-than-minimum-wage employees in the CEO's future; that requires spending more money, something which he was trying to avoid doing in the first place.

[s_stabeler]

it's also worth noting that every single time a new piece of technology is introduced that could result in jobs being lost, it has been heralded by predictions of it causing mass unemployment. It never has- or rather, it has never caused a decrease in the overall number of jobs available. yes, automating fast food restaurants could mean there are a lot less fast food employees around. However, there will always be a need for unskilled labour in some job or another which will- eventually- create jobs to replace those lost.

There's also the fact that, if you haven't noticed, historically, as jobs available at a certain level of education dry up, there is less pressure to leave school to get a job, so kids stay in school longer. As such, they are more able to get jobs that would previously been considered skilled jobs. (there was a time when being what is today a high school graduate meant you were a skilled worker- since even being able to go to school meant you were in the upper classes. Then, gradually, everyone was able to go to high school- so college graduates became the skilled workers. These days, it increasingly requires a Masters to be considered a skilled worker, or even a PhD.

[Daskinor]

I remember people bitching about how touch screen ordering would cut all the jobs at restaurants.

Even with these solutions in place you will still need 2 or more people to handle the front. Helping people with the ordering, running food. Dealing with complaints and issues.

[Dreamstalker]

I had to do some inane computer-based training the other day, and one of the bullet points on "company history" was something about developing the first fully-automated supermarket. Not sure if that meant the current SCOs (which still break) or something yet to be determined, but it was still strange.

Going by what I deal with daily, most of our customers would starve if faced with full automation (or have a case of cat food dropped on their head when they inevitably press the wrong button). On the plus side, a robot could zap them until they get it right.

[TheHuckster]

it's also worth noting that every single time a new piece of technology is introduced that could result in jobs being lost, it has been heralded by predictions of it causing mass unemployment. It never has- or rather, it has never caused a decrease in the overall number of jobs available. yes, automating fast food restaurants could mean there are a lot less fast food employees around. However, there will always be a need for unskilled labour in some job or another which will- eventually- create jobs to replace those lost.

It's a good point to make. I tend to disagree with the notion that innovation and technology is something to resist. Besides ethical conundrums like cloning/genetic engineering or weapons research, we can't discourage people from trying to improve the world with invention.

Invention and technology always cause industrial disruption. This is no different. What I've said a lot regarding the fate of those whose jobs could be replaced with technology, we need to improve the education system to prepare them better for the jobs that will be available instead. If you can't get by with a high school diploma, then that's a great failure of our 12-year education system.

And, don't get me wrong, I think as this continues, there will be less and less jobs for this type of labor, and we can't just sit idly by and expect there to magically be new jobs available for people whose careers have only been in fast food. Continuing education should be a focus as well.

[HYHYBT]

Having people stay in school longer would be fine, if it were as readily available, including direct costs, as high school. As things are, though...

I had to do some inane computer-based training the other day, and one of the bullet points on "company history" was something about developing the first fully-automated supermarket.

"Fully automated supermarket" sounds like something along the lines of Keedoozle.