Breaking Down the Fudge Factor

http://www.htmagazine.com/HT/archive/1007/1007_06.html

My article was on new software for restaurants that helps cut labor and waste costs from Compeat. It is a menu-analysis and forecast driven production system that analyses each product and ingredient their shelf life and the amount of ingredient left on the shelf. There are many restaurants that have already implemented this new software. TasteBuds uses time and motion studies to decide how and where to prepare your dishes. And by using this they have been able to cut labor costs in the prep area by 33 percent. The software also helps by choosing orders not based on past orders but on forecasting. This way you can reduce the waste by only ordering food that you will actually use. This helps out when adding new products on to the menu. You are able to order food based on what you will now need not what you have already used. Another aspect of the software is that before you add those new products to the menu you are able to see how this will affect your sales product and labor costs. Franchisers use this system to communicate with their franchisees. This helps out tremendously because they are able to communicate daily and now exactly what is going on at real time. They no longer have to wait for the end of the week reports. They can solve all problems when they happen. The downfall for the product is that it is expensive and it does take time and energy to master. Many of the restaurants said that a restaurant must set time aside to work and know this system. If they don’t they will not be using it to its greatest potential.

My feelings on this article are I believe it is great. Cutting costs is always something people are looking to do. To be successful you have to make sure you are always trying to cut costs without hindering your brand or product and this does just that. The software will help predicting what restaurants will add to menus and what needs to be ordered. The article has many quotes for restaurants that have already started using this software and it seems as if it is working very efficiently for their properties. This technology seems to best suited for large restaurants and franchises because of the cost and the aspects the software offers. A small restaurant does not need to manage their labor as a large restaurant does. Also the communication feature is a large push for franchises to use the software. Solving problems in real time is ideal for the franchisees. They will be able solve their problems when they happen and not have to wait for the end of the week and then go back and solve it. This article explained the software very well and I do think that the software will take off. A restaurant is also guessing how many people to assign a shift, how much of a product to order, if a new product will succeed and this software helps eliminate the guessing. They are able to know for certain and it is all done for them by Compeat.

Restaurant Communications

http://www.htmagazine.com/HT/archive/0907/0907_03.html

My article this week deals with communications in restaurants and how technology is completely changing them. The article described three main issues that are covered with the new technology. Theses issues are how to cut costs, how to turn the table over faster and how to improve customer’s experiences. It was broken down into examples of restaurant doing one of them things. The first was cutting costs. The example they used was Zaxby’s, a restaurant within the southeastern states. They use a predictive kitchen management service called HyperActive Bob to organize the food orders. Zaxby’s prides themselves on cooking customers’ food after they order it. HyperActive helps keep those orders under control. It actually predicts what types of meals need to be made by the post and current trends and from the customer counts. It has saved the Zaxby’s Restaurant $4,700 a year on waste alone. The next issue they discussed was the increase in table turnover times. The restaurant used in this example is Brennan’s of Houston. They began using Guest Bridges Reserve, a guest management system. This system helps the hostess mostly to be able to manage the tables on a busy night. It assigns different time values to the tables based on the size of the table or the meals they guests order. It also tracks the guest’s history to create a better personalized experience. The final issue is improving the guest’s experience. The Fatz Café has created a wireless system as a paging system. The servers/hostesses/kitchen workers all wear watch-like pagers to be paged. The customers can page their server if they need a refill or silverware. The hostesses are paged when table are cleaned and open by the bus boys and finally the kitchen workers can page the servers when their meals are done. Fatz Café has seen a great improvement for the customers. Customers do not have to wait as long for tables, receive their meals quicker and feel as if they waiters are doing what they can for them.

I believe that all of these ideas are great for the restaurant industry. The prediction of what meals need to be made or may need to be made is amazing to me. The fact that a restaurant has created a system like this is amazing and will help them tremendously. Also the guest management system is a great idea. If there is anything to cut down on a wait time for guests that is going to be great for the guests and the restaurant. I have heard a lot of information on the wireless devices in restaurants. I really believe this is the future of restaurants. The pager system is great for the customers to call the servers, for the hostess to be alerted and the kitchen staff to alert the servers. I believe this would do nothing but great things for a restaurant. More restaurants should input this into their restaurants. I am going to look into all of these systems because I find them very interesting. Technology in hotels is discussed a lot but it is interesting to hear about how restaurants are also upgrading and using this new technologies.