GRAPEVINE, Texas -- Already well-known on the premises of Sheetz, Thorntons and Wawa conveniences stores, among others, order-taking kiosk are now being taken seriously in the fast-food restaurant world, according to a report in The Dallas Morning News.
Ending years of flirtation, the fast-food industry finally appears ready to take the plunge into self-service ordering with kiosks, some restaurant technology experts say. Taking a page from banks and airlines, major chains, including McDonald's, Burger King and Subway, are field-testing machines [image-nocss] that allow consumers to order and pay for their meals without any human contact.
None of the companies has announced a systemwide launch. Still, experts say the growing use of self-service at the grocer and the gas pump has chains thinking more seriously of joining the do-it-yourself generation. "I think you'll see the initiation of ... a rollout next year," said Jerry Leeman, food service and hospitality manager for IBM, according to the Morning News report.
Leeman was one of more than 2,000 restaurant industry professionals and techies in Grapevine, Texas, this week for the 10th annual International Foodservice Technology Exposition, which ended Wednesday. He and others see a fast-food industry that is facing a staffing crunch. At the same time, consumers are becoming less tolerant of time-wasting queues.
Vendors say the touchscreen machines can shave minutes off a transaction timethe fast-food equivalent of finding the Holy Grail.
Robert Grimes, of Accuvia foodservice consulting firm, said the 10 companies promoting kiosks at the expo this year represent a 50% increase from last year, a measure of the growing restaurant interest. Georgia-based NCR, known historically as a cash register company, is likely the current leader in fast-food kiosks, Grimes said.
NCR has joined other technology companies, such as Radiant Systems, in doing "controlled deployment" of kiosks. NCR has about 60 of them running at franchised McDonald's locations in Houston, Orlando and Denver, said Peter Charpentier, product manager in the NCR retail solutions division.
He and other tech vendors see the benefits of self-service as clear. It shortens the customer wait and improves order accuracy because it removes the language barrier (an NCR machine can include up to 26 languages). Plus, it is programmed to always suggest that the consumer buy something else (up-selling), which means higher check averages.
On one kiosk model, the "large drink and fries" option virtually bursts out of the screen in 3-D fashion, while the other options are static.
And the technology's most obvious savings would be labor costs. But the vendors were careful to use terms such as "labor redeployment" and "repositioning" when talking about the kiosk's ability to cut crews. "They can have more labor in the kitchen and less labor up front," said Charpentier.
While the cost of the kiosks range from $2,500 to $18,000, the manufacturers said that is a fraction of the cost of reducing or eliminating concerns about sick days and paying overtime. The manufacturers also worry little about customer acceptance, given that fast food's target markethungry young malesis filled with technophiles.
"I believe we've finally reached the tipping point where this will work," said Paul R. Monahan III, president and chief executive of San Diego-based EMN8, a kiosk maker. He, too, predicted rapid deployment of fast-food kiosks next year and added, "Consumers are more ready than ever to serve themselves."
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