[rejschaap]

"If it takes $2,000 to install what is basically an iPad and stand for customers to order from at McDonald’s or Chipotle, a restaurateur is looking at less than a month before recouping their entire investment if they eliminate just one cashier position."

Obviously it takes a little bit more than that. You need to develop the software that runs on the kiosk. You also need a back-end system so the kitchen knows what to prepare. So the investment is a bit higher than that. But you will recoup it very quickly on McDonalds scale. And they will be able to provide better and faster service.

[ghshephard]

Indeed, Singapore where the new kiosks are almost ubiquitous, it's not uncommon for a cashier to have nobody waiting for them, but people still use the kiosks. 100% of the time when there is at least one person in line, I'll use the Kiosk - as all the orders are funneled into the same process queue. I particularly like the Kiosk because you can hyper customize every element of your order without confusion.

With that said - these Gen 1 Kiosks are kind of kludgy, not super responsive - and have a lot of room for improvement. Once they improve the performance, I don't ever see ordering from a human.

(It's already been many months since I've used a cashier to check out with at a local market - everything through the Kiosk)

(Note: Singapore has no minimum wage and lots of intergenerational living, so there is a lot of inexpensive labor available from Seniors that work at McDonalds - this type of technology will have a big impact on them)

[bad_user]

I do think that automating cashiers at McDonald’s would be a big mistake.

We tend to underestimate the human interaction, however it's far harder to refuse a "would you like fries with that?" type of question coming from a human, rather than from a stupid interface on which we'll tap "Skip" as an automatic gesture and without regrets.

Talking with another human is also good when you're undecided about what to buy. Of course, it's not like McDonald's is a varied restaurant, when in fact they are famous for having those 15 dishes taste the same wherever you go, but there's still choice involved when picking one of those burgers. And think of how in restaurants, even with a detailed menu with pictures, etc. people still ask the waiter "what do you recommend?".

So yes, you can automate a cashier, but this means that the customer <-> McDonald’s interaction also gets automated in that process, this being a doubly edged sword and my guess is that it's not the customer that loses.

Oh, and the irony of this automation trend is that in the end there won't be enough people left to pay for McDonald’s shitty burgers, unless we progress towards some socialist society with minimal income and so on, in which case McDonald's raison d'être will cease to exist.

[bryondowd]

Even used a Wawa's automated ordering system?

They've covered pretty much everything you mention here with their automated ordering system. It's got a great UI to quickly customize your order, has very tempting upsells that also aren't terribly annoying, like a screen asking if you'd like sour cream for your quesadilla for $0.25 or a buttered roll with your cheddar broccoli soup. You can tap skip, but it certainly seems to make most people think first, unless they already know the system well and aren't interested.

It also provides recommendations in a couple ways, to cover people who don't already know what they want. Unobtrusive, but available to spur a purchase.

And the employees behind the counter will generally handle special requests outside the scope of the system when you ask. Although admittedly, while they are usually fairly approachable, there isn't a clear way to get one's attention.

They really seem to have nearly perfected the automated ordering system, and I'd never go to an ordinary deli with a Wawa available. It's just too convenient.

Of course, I may be biased in that I get intimidated by human interactions where I don't know the protocol or the options available to me. So, ordinary deli places tend to put me off. Still, Wawa is incredibly popular in this area, so I can't be the only one.

[cm2012]

I like McDonalds and have been to quite a few. I have never, ever been asked if I want fries with that or otherwise upsold. Not sure where this meme comes from.

[bad_user]

In every McDonalds I've been they ask:

1. Would you like a menu? (+fries +juice)

2. Make it big menu for just $X ?

3. Would you like a pie for desert?

I also have acquaintances that worked there. From where I'm from, if you don't ask such questions and smile at the same time, you tend to get fired.

[cm2012]

I wonder if it's an NYC thing.

[bblough]

> I wonder if it's an NYC thing.

I think it's a US thing.

I remember that when I was younger I would get asked those questions every time, but not any more.

In the past few years (decade?) there has been a lot of push back against upselling fast food due to obesity concerns. If I had to guess I would say it probably started around when the movie "Super Size Me" was released (2004).

Now, if I order a meal, I might get asked "what size" without any suggestion. Or if I order a sandwich by name, I usually get asked to clarify if I want "the meal or just the sandwich." But I can't remember the last time they actually tried to upsell me.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if upselling still happened outside of the US.

[throwaway729]

Nope. Small Midwestern town, same deal.

[undersuit]

I find it is much more common to be asked when you are in line at the drive-thru compared to walk-ins.

[lohi]

Oh, I don't think it will work in the US (at least not initially). Americans are accustomed to a certain level of service, in part because of cheap labor. I remember standing behind an American family at McDonald's and their order was just on another level, very specific. Nothing wrong with that, they are getting their money's worth, just different expectations.

We've had automated ordering at local chains in Sweden for 10 years, both in store and on your phone [0]. And more recently also at McDonald's. But you're expected to do a lot of things yourself here. This goes back at least to the '70s with the explicit idea to increase wages and production [1].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FyPqoT1yp4&t=60s [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehn%E2%80%93Meidner_model

[fapjacks]

I've never been in a Max Burger place that didn't have humans also taking orders.

[lohi]

The one at way out west might have been without human ordering [0]. But since you still need humans to make and compile the food it might not make sense to have automated serving. And since you have people serving they might as well take orders under normal conditions.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmCECwKpLgA

[undersuit]

>"would you like fries with that?"

Example:

1)You select the #5 and it defaults to a meal, with the size of the meal predetermined by the most profitable selection. 2)You have to manually remove the fries and the drink, with a confirmation for each element. 3)When you hit order a pop-up appears advertising the newest derivative flavor topping for fries that you must dismiss or can click to add to your order. 4)Before you confirm your order you must un-check 2-4 options that are defaulted: add a small fries to the order, sign me up for the fries club, recommend fries to your friends.

[bryondowd]

That sounds like a great way to drive people away. An ordering system more annoying than a pushy salesperson? I'm going across the street instead, unless literally every option around does the same thing. And if Wawa in my area is any indication, there will be better options.

[undersuit]

How much better is a Wawa than a Sheetz? When I lived in Virginia(9 years ago?) I would visit one near my work and I could order food on a screen and a few minutes later an invisible person would push it through the service window.

[bryondowd]

Never been to a Sheetz, I'm too far north, I suppose. There's no service window at Wawa, though. They prepare everything in plain sight behind a counter, which I'd consider a plus. And their mac n cheese sides are as addictive as cocaine.

For a third party comparison:

http://www.businessinsider.com/wawa-or-sheetz-which-is-bette...

[lotsofpulp]

I think human interaction is over-rated. I have to check the receipt every time I order food to make sure what I ordered was communicated by me, and correctly interpreted and inputted by the worker. Instead, if I just entered what I want into the system, then it is transcribed and I have a record and they have a record and there is less chance of mistake. If there is a mistake, there is no "he said she said" finger pointing.

[TheAdamist]

Wawa's (mid-atlantic convenience store) sandwich / burrito / etc ordering process has been fully automated and customizable for a while. Order at a kiosk, go pickup whatever you want for a drink, go pay at the (human) cashier and your food is just about ready for you when you get back to the sandwich counter. It works pretty well.

[marcosdumay]

> my guess is that it's not the customer that loses

It's quite possible that neither the customer nor the restaurant lose.

Anyway, a computer can also make recommendations. And it's just not a contest if the choice is between a web-page taking orders in my phone or waiting in line behind people that just stay on the cashier and can't decide what to order.

[seibelj]

I get your point, but with a kiosk they could dynamically give special deals, like "add fries for $0.18" if it is profitable for them at that moment (maybe they are about to toss the batch of fries). Honestly I wouldn't consider McD's cashiers to be good salesmen.

[maxerickson]

On the other hand, with kiosks you can start A/B testing and so on.

I'm not really sure that people eat at McDonald's for the price. If you are price sensitive, cooking pasta at home costs less than McDonald's and isn't all that time consuming.

[derefr]

Ah, but the backend system already exists; it's what is talked to by the registers the cashiers were using. Likewise, the registers themselves are already running software 90% equivalent to the kiosk's software—same view controllers, different views.

[kevinr]

> And they will be able to provide better and faster service.

On the contrary, my local grocery store took out their self-serve checkout kiosks and replaced them with human checkers. Turns out there was some skill involved after all.

[syshum]

Most Self Service Kiosks in stores are not designed for User Experience or Efficiency in mind, that is way the fail

They are designed with Loss Prevention in mind, so they end up treating every customer that walks up to them as a criminal looking to steal something.

This is one of the reason I still use a human checker when I go to the grocery, it is far more efficient and takes less time than the Self Checkout.

Now if they ever perfect what Walmart has been working on, either the "Check out as you shop" system where you scan items with your smart phone as you shop, or the RFID based system where you push your entire cart into a large RFID reader and it scans everything in a matter of seconds... that might get me to use those systems

[ghshephard]

I guess it depends on where the Self Service Kiosks have been deployed - I can Scan, Bag, Pay, leave in < 60 seconds with 6 items in my basket. Honestly, the hardest part is opening a hole in top of the bag that I can put stuff in.

Concur - if I have a cart, probably would use a checkout person - but, when you get used to buying stuff from the store 1-2x a day, you rarely have a large load.

[syshum]

>- I can Scan, Bag, Pay, leave in < 60 seconds with 6 items in my basket.

Yea if you only have 6 items sure... I never go to the store when I am only buying 6 items.... If I only need 6 things it can wait until I need more

I go to the store 1 or 2 times a month, not everyday

[thenomad]

The UK has had the "check out as you shop" systems for a while in most major supermarkets. They work very well.

[aninhumer]

Indeed. When I was living near one, I could walk in, fill my own backpack with stuff, pay in a few seconds and walk out. Another advantage is that I could see that discounts had processed properly, instead of having to check the receipt.

But once I moved away, I started using home delivery and it's even better. My shopping now consists of ~15mins browsing a website, and ~15mins receiving and unpacking bags, and I only need to do it about once a fortnight.

[terryf]

Yes, 100% yes - I now only shop at the supermarket that gives you scanners. The system is genius, works like this:

  - swipe loyalty card, get a hand-held scanner
  - walk around the shop, scan items as you put them in your bag
  - when walking out, stick the scanner back into the holder
  - swipe your loyalty card, pay with card, leave

It's unbelievably convenient, mostly because you only have to put items in your bag once, when you're picking them up from the shelf, not twice when you have the usual self-serve kiosks.

Obviously it's trivial to steal items and they randomly sometimes check the bag contents on checkout, but this is extremely rare.

Basically, they're assuming their customers are not aholes. And it works beautifully.

[ghshephard]

That's interesting - I don't know if I've ever heard of someone going the other direction. As long as everything is bar coded, and you've got excellent industrial scanners (that's the key - not those crappy scanners that cashiers normally have to deal with) - Checkout via Kiosk is pretty effortless. In 12+ months of using them, I have not had a single bar code failure - which is pretty amazing.

About the only thing that's tricky is putting a large flat of eggs into the bag, and there's usually one person monitoring six kiosks who can swing by and give you a hand with the bag (it's kind of a two person job)

[bsder]

> That's interesting - I don't know if I've ever heard of someone going the other direction.

You've never dealt with some of the cretins we have in the US.

It's a tradeoff between space vs. time. If square footage is cheap, you can add more lines until there are enough that even with your guaranteed cretin blockage there will always be a line open. If square footage is expensive, then having cashiers to manhandle the cretins is more productive.

[ghshephard]

What's interesting, is that Land here in Singapore isn't precisely cheap - but all the fair price stores that I frequent have automated kiosks. Particularly if you have Apple Pay (or "Pay Wave") as they call it here, if you have just a few items, you can scan, bag, pay in under 60 seconds. It's pretty awesome.

[averagewall]

Do you know why? Supermarkets everywhere have self-serve checkouts and they seem to be successful. What skill was needed at your local shop that the self-service checkouts didn't have? Was it preventing theft? Identifying produce?

[mantas]

Just some anecdata, but personally I hate dealing with self-checkout when buying fruits/veggies/buns/bread and other non-barcoded items. Cashiers are so much faster than me to deal with that. Maybe the shop in question have a lot of non-barcode items and it causes serious delay.

[throwanem]

If you're in the US, your fruits and veg almost certainly have little stickers on them. Those stickers contain four- or five-digit numbers which, if entered into a register or a kiosk, identify the produce and save the time of navigating an icon menu to do so.

The kiosks at all the grocery stores where I've used them have offered the option of entering item codes, so it's a fair bet yours do too; if so, give it a try, and see if it doesn't save you considerable time.

[mantas]

Late reply, but just in case if someone finds this helpful...

Over there fresh fruits/vegs/bakery don't have any stickers/packaging/etc. You pick them, put in a bag and cashier rings them up along with barcoded items. They got a fatass book with pictures for newbies/self checkout and all experienced staff have muscle memory...

[dazc]

In Spain it's common that you have to weigh and label such items as you buy them, so you are just scanning a bar code when it comes to the checkout bit. The only snag is that below a certain price point some stores will intervene to check you really have just bought one croissant, which kind of defeats the whole purpose?

[mantas]

In Lithuania only 1 small supermarket chain do so. In the rest, this is done at checkout.

I still remember when I encountered this workflow for the first time. I didn't speak local language, cashier didn't speak english and I had no clue why cashier is so banana while ringing up my bananas :(

[ghshephard]

Our stores with kiosks have hand bags of fruit, fruit/vegetables already bar coded, and, in the dozen or so cases where you have to buy-by-weight, they have hand scales/bar code printers. So, for about 10-20 items out of 10,000 in stock you need to worry. You are right - having 100% universal bar codes makes all the difference.

[kevinr]

I don't have data, only anecdote. I've used two of the same supermarket chain which both had the machines, one in a mixed-use area next to a mid-sized research university, and one in a very residential area in an inner-ring suburb.

Around the university, the supermarket drew primarily from the adjacent neighborhoods, and got a lot of college students and local residents who were shopping on average weekly, so we quickly got skilled at using the machines. In the residential suburb, the supermarket draws from a much larger area, and there are more customers who shop there infrequently, so they never get skilled at using the machines. Even just as a skilled user, not as a professional checker, I would regularly stand in line behind people where I knew that I could have shaved minutes off their time merely if I had checked them out.

A lot of the skill involved was just in general operation: how to find barcodes, how to scan items reliably, how to identify produce and enter it correctly, how to use coupons, how to flag down help if the machine entered an unexpected state or required human assistance, how to use the payment terminal with cash, credit, and debit, how to bag items correctly and so that the machine would recognize them, what the various prompts mean and how to respond to them. There's a lot of complexity in operations which we denigrate as "unskilled" or "menial labor" which is only evident when you take the time to observe closely and see what people are actually doing in them.

[samsolomon]

You know, I'm not sure this goes into the automation category—this is more of an operational improvement.

Originally, you'd go to a restaurant. You'd sit at a counter. They would take your order and give you a drink along with your meal.

Then someone realized that it saved a huge amount of time just giving people cups and letting them fill their own drink. Not only that, but it made the job of staff easier, because they had one less thing to worry about.

That happened again when they started putting the credit card readers in front of cashiers. It was one less thing staff had to worry about. It also reduced the amount of time ordering took and made stealing credit card information more difficult.

I see this type of improvement inline with operational improvements. That's not to say automation isn't a threat—certainly self-driving cars are. I'm just not sure everything should be classified as automation.

[marchenko]

At my last McDo visit, in Switzerland, most of the ordering was through kiosks and the staff was repurposed toward table service. The restaurant was especially clean and friendly, and there seemed to be a lot of staff. So there is hope for complementarity.

[notahacker]

The basic technology to serve people fast food without human interaction (the Automat) has been around for longer than fast food franchises. Fast food franchises invest vast amounts on process optimization and kiosks are still at the experimental stage (and still with human food delivery!).

Obvious conclusion: fast food companies operating on high margins still think they sell more stuff with humans in the chain, and also find that by virtue of its versatility cheap human labour makes less expensive mistakes in preparing the food (which in most aspects is so simple it would appear ideally suited to automation) than a robotic production line would.

[majewsky]

That conclusion is not so obvious. Some middle managers might just be pushing back against automation because it eats their lunch, too.

[notahacker]

That might be the case for Mom and Pop listening to their restaurant manager, but nobody high up enough in McDonalds' hierarchy to have significant influence what experiments in store tech they roll out to some or all of their 37000 outlets/franchises faces any risk to their job from automation. Nor do the management consultants they hire to validate their assumptions and provide justification for their unpopular decisions. On the contrary, even a 1% productivity improvement is a major feather in their cap, bumper pay rise and appreciation in their shareholdings.

[onion2k]

That would be the case for a restaurant that doesn't have any computerised systems already, but in a McDonalds the process is effectively just turning the till around to face the customer and letting them use it themselves.

[coredog64]

> You also need a back-end system so the kitchen knows what to prepare.

It's been a long time since the order was shouted from the cashier to the cooks at a McD. Most burger franchises have a back-end system that collects up all the orders from the register, prioritizes them, and displays them on a screen to be made.

[mjevans]

Please, use NFC to push my order blob up to my private storage device, so that next time I visit I can tap my phone and /send/ the order back in to the system. So much the better if it's json or xml and editable offline. (Obviously validate either way...)

[formula_ninguna]

Hence they'll be to sell people junk food even faster with better service? And more people will become more fat and sick in the long-term? coca-cola + humber = parapapapa. I'm loving it. McDonalds.