Tag: voice technology

OM in the News: McDonald’s to Add Automated Drive-Thru Ordering

McDonald’s is making a bet it can automate the task of taking drive-thru orders, reports New Equipment Digest (Sept. 10, 2019). The world’s biggest restaurant company is buying startup Apprente, a developer of voice-recognition technology for use in the restaurant industry, to help speed up lines. The idea is to eventually have a machine, instead of a person, on the other side of the intercom to relay orders to kitchen staff. Chicago-area restaurants are testing the system.

McDonald’s sees Apprente helping it move cars through the drive-thru lane more quickly and take orders more accurately than employees. The company is also investing to add ordering apps and kiosks in its restaurants and digital menu displays. Fast-food companies are looking for an edge amid intense competition.

Apprente says its technology can accurately interpret conversational language — such as a customer ordering a hamburger with no onions and extra sauce. McDonald’s already is testing the technology in its drive-thru lanes, which makes up about 70% of the company’s business. It plans to roll Apprente’s technology out nationwide, and predicts it will have a “positive impact on more than half of our customers.”

McDonald’s also spent $300 million on Dynamic Yield Ltd.  this year, a company which helps retailers improve performance by collecting personal data from customers to fine-tune sales pitches and promotions. McDonald’s uses Dynamic Yield’s tools to suggest food and drinks to diners based on factors such as time of day, weather and traffic.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is this an important OM tool for McDonald’s?
  2.  Compare this to the 7 other major changes described in the Global Company Profile on McDonald’s that opens Chapter 9.

OM in the News: “Alexa, Manage My Warehouse”

As e-commerce order volume continues spiraling upwards while delivery windows shrink, warehouse workers need innovations to meet picking, packing and shipping goals, writes Supply Chain Dive (April 30, 2019). Speech recognition software and voice-directed applications have been used in warehouses since the late 1990s. Even with continued technological advancements, though, adoption is still relatively low. About a quarter of warehouses use voice-directed picking. Traditional voice-directed technologies with headsets and microphones are one solution. New uses of current voice technologies, like Alexa, are another.

Millennial workers are tech-savvy and like incorporating technology in their jobs. They’re used to smart speakers with consumer applications like Google Home and Amazon’s Echo and Alexa, and the voice systems have similarities. Efficiency is important because individual customers and businesses expect their products to arrive more quickly than in the past. And there’s an increased number of small orders. Instead of a business receiving cases of product on a full or mixed pallet once a week, they’re getting multiple orders per week with individual products.

Those moving to voice-directed technology are often changing from hand-held radio frequency scanning devices. In doing so, they decrease the picking steps in the workflow from 9 steps to around 5 per pick. With spoken commands, there’s no need to hold a device, which must be put down during the picks. Workers no longer need to look at the device screen and use the keyboard to input or find information. The picks are more accurate because the voice system confirms the picker is at the right location and picked the right items. It increases productivity by 30-45%.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What are the advantages of voice systems in warehouse “picking”?
  2. What other advances have we seen in huge warehouses such as those of Amazon?