OM in the News: Domino’s and the Driverless Car

“In the race to develop self-driving cars, much of the attention has focused on ferrying people,” writes The New York Times (Aug. 30, 2017). But delivering goods – from groceries to packages to books and more – may offer a considerable opportunity as well. The Domino’s pizza chain this week plans to start testing deliveries using a self-driving Ford Fusion sedan outfitted with enough sensors, electronics and software to find its way to customers in Ann Arbor, home of the U. of Michigan. The possibilities of pizza delivery are not hard to imagine. Americans already take delivery of billions of dollars’ worth of products sold by Amazon and other online retailers. In the future, a retailer like Home Depot could deliver building materials directly to job sites.

The Domino’s experiment offers Ford a chance to showcase its technology. As far as using such cars as a mode of delivery, Ford expects to begin producing a fully autonomous vehicle that will have no steering wheel and no pedals in 2021. Driverless vehicles are not a rare sight in Ann Arbor. The university is operating a vast pilot project to develop connected-car technologies, and self-driving Fords or Lexuses can often be seen navigating downtown streets.

Because there is no delivery person to bring pizzas to the door, customers will have to walk outside to retrieve their order. They will be alerted by text when the car is nearing their home and when it arrives. A red arrow on the car’s rear window tells customers to “start here” and directs them to a touch screen. Keying in the last four digits of the customer’s phone number causes the window to open, revealing an insulated compartment large enough to hold 5 pizzas and 4 side orders. One customer advantage of taking delivery from a self-driving car: If there’s no driver, there’s no tip.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. What are the implications from an OM perspective of the proposed system?
2. Do your students view this concept favorably?