AUTOMATION IN FOOD SERVICE: OPPORTUNITIES & LIMITATIONS

Food restaurant owners face a hard time deciding whether or not to invest their time and resources on improving methods of efficient food production and food service. This issue is why we decided to create our revised problem statement: “how might we better understand the opportunities & limitations of automation in exceptional food service?” The original problem statement was “How responsive are consumers to a potential change in the art (process) of making food, particularly a change from the system of today to using technology to create better dishes?” However, we changed it after realizing restaurants and businesses were in control of this change much more so than customers and that interviewing restaurant managers/owners would yield much more detailed and pertinent data than would arise out of interviewing customers.

Designed with Roberto Ponce & Todd Qiu for ES21

PRESENTATION

REPORT

Food Service Automation: Bio

During our fieldwork we discovered that restaurant managers agree that a variety of factors play a significant role in the level of automation. Restaurants have unique situations; it is not as simple as restaurants should automate or restaurants should not automate.

Cost is a big factor: as seen by Spyce where a lot of money goes into research used to create precise and good tasting food, in addition advanced machinery, in addition to a large complement of human workers. This can decide whether it is profitable or feasible for a restaurant to automate more as well. Consumer values and beliefs in an area can play a role in the decision as well, and the style of food is an important factor. If the restaurant is one that is based on natural, traditional food, like B.good, it is likely more difficult to transition to technology which can go against the values it has used to appeal to customers thus far.

Food Service Automation: Welcome

AUTOMATION IN FOOD SERVICE: OPPORTUNITIES & LIMITATIONS

During our fieldwork we discovered that restaurant managers agree that a variety of factors play a significant role in the level of automation. Restaurants have unique situations; it is not as simple as restaurants should automate or restaurants should not automate.

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