McDonald's bets on AI to boost order accuracy, streamline operations at 43,000 restaurants

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: McDonald's is turning to artificial intelligence to improve operations at 43,000 restaurants. The initiative, according to Chief Information Officer Brian Rice, will help crews deal with daily stressors including customer and vendor interactions as well as equipment failures.

The Wall Street Journal notes that McDonald's starting rolling out edge computing platforms at some of its US restaurants last year, and plans to add more to the mix in 2025.

The new tech affords a host of possibilities. Computer vision, for example, could check for accuracy using fixed cameras in the kitchen before an order is passed along to a customer. Automated order-taking AI, like the kind McDonald's tested with IBM last year, could streamline drive-thru orders. Sensors installed on kitchen equipment could collect data in real time and use it to better predict when deep fryers or ice cream machines are most likely to fail.

Elsewhere, edge computing could help restaurant managers with administrative tasks. A "generative AI virtual manager, similar to ones Taco Bell and Pizza Hut have been testing, would make it easier for managers to perform shift scheduling.

McDonald's would not say how many locations in the US currently have edge computing capabilities in use. As Sandeep Unni, a retail analyst at market research firm Gartner, highlights, the popular burger giant will no doubt face difficulty when it comes to rolling out the tech across franchise and corporate owned locations. Deployment costs are also a concern, Unni added.

Whether or not the technology supplements are needed is partially a matter of personal opinion. One could argue that funding for the initiative could perhaps be better spent on improving employee training and tightening up routine maintenance. If staff was more efficient at tasks like taking drive-thru orders and ensuring order accuracy, AI overlords wouldn't be needed.

Rival fast food outfits like In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A have perfected customer service, and there's little reason why others couldn't replicate their success if it were made a priority.

Image credit: Erik Mclean, Brett Jordan

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McDonald's bets on AI to boost order accuracy, streamline operations at 43,000 restaurants

 

[GABulldog]

Maybe AI can fix their ice cream machines

 

[Megalomaniac]

You need AI to make burgers, fries and sodas accurate?

How about you just use a checklist?

 

[VitalyT]

Give us a pizza printer, and you can bury the human kind with it.

 

[bviktor]

You need AI to make burgers, fries and sodas accurate?

How about you just use a checklist?

They do. But still mess it up. It's quite impressive, really.

 

[p51d007]

I blame (mostly) parents & smartphones. If parents "raised" their children with manners, respect etc, and didn't let them have a silly smartphone until they were at least driving age, perhaps they would be more in touch with the first job they worked at, which, many choose fast food places, grocery stores etc. How many times have you gone into a business and you see the staff (even adults) glued into their phones?
Attention span with a lot of kids these days is painfully low, mostly because of the smartphone.

 

[human7]

If they ditch Taylor and let their franchises do maintenance on the equipment, they won't need to predict when their ice cream machines fail. But no, they'd rather split the profits from all those planned repair bills. I guess that's why they need better predictions, so they can improve their forecasts for their shareholders.

 

[texasrattler]

You need AI to make burgers, fries and sodas accurate?

How about you just use a checklist?

Nope but they don't have any feelings, they just do the job.
Humans complain, don't feel like working or worse caring. AI won't have those issues. Those issue can be big in the fast food industry.
Can AI help, probably, is it worth using AI. Yet to be seen.

 

[Watzupken]

There is no wonder their sales are tanking and the food quality (and quantity) are going downhill. If you look at the fact that food taste good when there is passion in making them, but now being produced by people with no passion and gets worst when adding machines to try to do some of the work and quality checks, I just think it will get worst. The same can be said about other industries because when you remove the passionate workers to deliver quality products/ services, but getting replaced with AI, you can tell that the quality plunges. AI is useful in some way, but there are work that they are not suited to. You can force fit them into the workflow, but expect poor results.

 

[hahahanoobs]

You need AI to make burgers, fries and sodas accurate?

How about you just use a checklist?

lol what? The part you're talking about is more about surveillance. What they are actually describing is AI being used to monitor the order process in general done by staff. ie: Cleanliness. Orders completed in a timely manner, etc.

Or do you believe people are perfect and you don't care for better service, because time and time again the excuse is always "everyone makes mistakes?" The idea is AI will make less of them. Hate on that, but don't make stuff up.

Sheesh.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Anything to decrease the amount of minimum-wage, minimum-brained yokels who manage to screw up my order time and time again…

 

[brucek]

Maybe AI can fix their ice cream machines

LOL! First thing I thought of too.

 

[Dimitriid]

I really dislike the obfuscation the term 'order accuracy' brings. Listen, there is no such thing as an inaccurate order: you give your order and even if very large as soon as you pay you're usually given a ticket but if not, servers have it and put that on a TV screen for all to see. As long as you're fairly certain as a customer your order was input correctly there's no way to get the order wrong.

The actual issue is just labor exploitation: If you have enough workers and threat them like human beings with things like a proper salary, no crazy overtime or lack of breaks due to under-staffing, etc. Then I guarantee 99.99% of all orders would be accurate and mostly keeping the same fast turn around time.

The issue is that McDonalds being the blueprints for the fast food models, would just like to get away with paying employees as little as possible, work them basically right up to the human limit when people are so stressed and exhausted they make mistakes and get away with it.

Not only that, now they want to have a machine learning model that can basically input the burnout rate of employees to know when they're so exhausted they're the most likely to make mistakes, predict those and enter double orders or sacrificial ones to make sure they basically go beyond the point where they're productive but just keep flipping those burgers: push them right into 12 hour shifts with no breaks if possible and if they literally drop dead have the AI predict when they'll do so to start hiring someone else in advance.

That's what's so dystopian about this seemingly positive spin on 'order accuracy'

 

[Primey]

You need AI to make burgers, fries and sodas accurate?

How about you just use a checklist?

My local McDonald's has a terrible time with orders; it's like they don't care, so yes, they do need AI or better trained staff. But I guess AI is cheaper.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I really dislike the obfuscation the term 'order accuracy' brings. Listen, there is no such thing as an inaccurate order: you give your order and even if very large as soon as you pay you're usually given a ticket but if not, servers have it and put that on a TV screen for all to see. As long as you're fairly certain as a customer your order was input correctly there's no way to get the order wrong.

The actual issue is just labor exploitation: If you have enough workers and threat them like human beings with things like a proper salary, no crazy overtime or lack of breaks due to under-staffing, etc. Then I guarantee 99.99% of all orders would be accurate and mostly keeping the same fast turn around time.

The issue is that McDonalds being the blueprints for the fast food models, would just like to get away with paying employees as little as possible, work them basically right up to the human limit when people are so stressed and exhausted they make mistakes and get away with it.

Not only that, now they want to have a machine learning model that can basically input the burnout rate of employees to know when they're so exhausted they're the most likely to make mistakes, predict those and enter double orders or sacrificial ones to make sure they basically go beyond the point where they're productive but just keep flipping those burgers: push them right into 12 hour shifts with no breaks if possible and if they literally drop dead have the AI predict when they'll do so to start hiring someone else in advance.

That's what's so dystopian about this seemingly positive spin on 'order accuracy'

No… you can have the order up on a screen - it can say 10-pc chicken nuggets and large fries…
Then the staff member can put a Big Mac in your bag and unless you check the bag immediately, you end up with “order inaccuracy “.
It’s REALLY easy to be inaccurate when you are overworked, underpaid, not particularly bright and don’t give a sh** in the first place.

 

[DukeJukem]

You need AI to make burgers, fries and sodas accurate?

How about you just use a checklist?

Worked there for about a year last year, wouldn't help. I promise.

 

[Underdog]

Would you be happy in a mind-numbingly boring job that doesn't pay enough to cover your bills, all the time knowing that there are a dozen people out there so desperate they are ready to replace you if you drop dead while flipping those burgers?

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

When AI can perfect a Star Trek Replicator to make food that doesn't taste like...then it's worth it.

 

[disinfect8280]

I really dislike the obfuscation the term 'order accuracy' brings. Listen, there is no such thing as an inaccurate order: you give your order and even if very large as soon as you pay you're usually given a ticket but if not, servers have it and put that on a TV screen for all to see. As long as you're fairly certain as a customer your order was input correctly there's no way to get the order wrong.

The actual issue is just labor exploitation: If you have enough workers and threat them like human beings with things like a proper salary, no crazy overtime or lack of breaks due to under-staffing, etc. Then I guarantee 99.99% of all orders would be accurate and mostly keeping the same fast turn around time.

The issue is that McDonalds being the blueprints for the fast food models, would just like to get away with paying employees as little as possible, work them basically right up to the human limit when people are so stressed and exhausted they make mistakes and get away with it.

Not only that, now they want to have a machine learning model that can basically input the burnout rate of employees to know when they're so exhausted they're the most likely to make mistakes, predict those and enter double orders or sacrificial ones to make sure they basically go beyond the point where they're productive but just keep flipping those burgers: push them right into 12 hour shifts with no breaks if possible and if they literally drop dead have the AI predict when they'll do so to start hiring someone else in advance.

That's what's so dystopian about this seemingly positive spin on 'order accuracy'

Or they could try not sucking

 

[Dimitriid]

Or they could try not sucking

There's only 2 possibilities as to why you'd think that:

1) You never actually had a grueling, low paying job you couldn't quit because you'd be literally out on the street if you did.

2) You actually do come from such background but have internalized the propaganda that tells you rich people are rich because they've worked so much harder than you and that you just have to keep trying till you make it, 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!' and all that.

It's just a lie so you keep putting money on the hands of rich people that inherited their wealth going back to the literal slave trade times if not further back.

You're probably not ready to hear either argument so I'll choose not to interact with you further.

 

[HofyPC]

If it is anything like the app then it will fail. With the app there is no way to order Mac Sauce on anything but a Big Mac. Want it on a McChicken? Not happening. Order in person, no problem.

 

[Win7user]

It's not order accuracy that's hurting MacDonald's, it's the garbage they sell, calling it food.

And, as I remember, lukewarm, and non-melted cheese on your burger! Of, course, I haven't eaten at MacDonald's in almost 17 yrs!! Matter of fact, the "only fast-food" I eat, is In-Out-Burger. Reasonably priced food, well staffed, and clean stores through-out their network!

 

[disinfect8280]

There's only 2 possibilities as to why you'd think that:

1) You never actually had a grueling, low paying job you couldn't quit because you'd be literally out on the street if you did.

2) You actually do come from such background but have internalized the propaganda that tells you rich people are rich because they've worked so much harder than you and that you just have to keep trying till you make it, 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!' and all that.

It's just a lie so you keep putting money on the hands of rich people that inherited their wealth going back to the literal slave trade times if not further back.

You're probably not ready to hear either argument so I'll choose not to interact with you further.

3) Most employees give sub-par service. I'm not going to entertain a straw man argument comparing billionaires to working class. Moot point.

 

[Squid Surprise]

It's not order accuracy that's hurting MacDonald's, it's the garbage they sell, calling it food.

And, as I remember, lukewarm, and non-melted cheese on your burger! Of, course, I haven't eaten at MacDonald's in almost 17 yrs!! Matter of fact, the "only fast-food" I eat, is In-Out-Burger. Reasonably priced food, well staffed, and clean stores through-out their network!

While the “food” may be questionable, they’ve been profiting for decades serving it… it’s only recently that they’ve started to lose money…

 

[Win7user]

While the “food” may be questionable, they’ve been profiting for decades serving it… it’s only recently that they’ve started to lose money…

And....