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I see this as the start to a gradual move towards fully automated drop-in mini-food factories to replace the kitchen staff of fast food restaurants.

I think the easiest thing to automate next is the french fry station. The Wendy’s chili pots should be easy to automate too, using automated dispensing equipment to fill the chili cups. Really, from a technical standpoint, all of this is quite feasible and I imagine automation of much, if not most, of these cooking operations is in development right now.

The only thing stopping automation deployment is economics, namely automated equipment won’t be deployed as long as the current manual equipment operated by employees is cheaper than deploying new automated equipment. Increasing minimum wages, obamacare and all the rest are simply accelerating the deployment of such automation.

It now looks like the tipping point has been reached for the ordering process. No doubt every fast food operation in the U.S. will be keenly observing Wendy’s experience with their ordering kiosks, and should they be a success, the entire industry will very quickly embrace that technology.