Posted on 05/12/2016 12:07:32 PM PDT by Trump20162020
Investor’s Business Daily reported Wednesday that fast food chain Wendy’s will be expanding the use of self-service kiosks in response to the rising minimum wage:
Wendy’s said that self-service ordering kiosks will be made available across its 6,000-plus restaurants in the second half of the year as minimum wage hikes and a tight labor market push up wages.
It will be up to franchisees whether to deploy the labor-saving technology, but Wendy’s President Todd Penegor did note that some franchise locations have been raising prices to offset wage hikes
Other fast food chains are also experimenting with self-service kiosks. McDonalds has also made them available to stores.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Sigh...unintended or intended consequences?
It mentioned that some franchise locations were already raising costs.
I thought they all had to charge the same thing.
.
It’s a good idea anyway. Punch in a burger, fries, and coke, pay for it and wait for your number to come up and away you go. It’s all that human meddling that leads to conflict.
Self-service is much better than humans where there is a good probability they will screw up the order. The gas station chain Wawa uses kiosks for ordering subs and the like.
Or just order on your cellphone and drive in and get your order without waiting.
Oh the humanity.
Wendy’s is putting profits ahead of workers* welfare.
Oh the humanity.
I find it interesting how the word “workers” has replaced the word “employees” in media and by the Federals.
Takes me back to those wonderful uplifting news stories out of the Soviet Union.
Automated ordering will reduce service times and reduce order errors for all businesses. Businesses that want to stand out will shift some of the employees to improving store conditions. If they’d had an electronic order system at Cook Out Hamburgers, where I was directed by my son the other night, the young lady who got our order wrong could have been mopping up the spilled milkshake that sat on the floor for 15 minutes.
Okay, in a Wendy’s that takes care of 1-2 folks working the register. It doesn’t do anything for the 5-8 people back cooking food or manning the drive through, which probably isn’t ready for automation.
I will note that a computer has never spit in my food because of my ethnicity.
Always thought a good cartoon for this would be a lone loafing fast food working leaning on the counter with the caption:
“Isn’t this new $15 minimum wage awesome, dude? ...Dude?”
I could see in the not-too-distant future a system, where robots will make the food and assemble the order for the customer to drive up and take. The only employees necessary are the ones to maintain the robots.
Coming soon to major US Cities.... a tax on kiosks. You heard it hear first.
Eat N Bolt - because calling it a meal instead of fuel ingestion is old-fashioned.
Here's a proof of concept. The commercial application will just be just scaled down a little:
And the targeting cameras are already in place:
And Google already had the basic tracking app:
Diebold will futz up my order.
“...the ones to maintain the robots.”
No way on earth that would be a franchise employee. That would be an on-call contractor, an employee of another company who arrives in a van and swaps out the terminal plug-plug-plug. Could even be via RF. They get called once every 45 days, if that.
Very true. Essentially it’s a “lights-out” operation.
Machines will take the orders, people are still cooking the McFood
Unions seek exemption from LA minimum wage law they helped pass.
Allow your workers to unionize and you can continue to pay them $8/hr. Block unionization, and you'll have to pay them $15/hr.
I definitely could see using drones to deliver the food as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.