Fast food is big – $277B sales, 194,000 sites, 3.9M staff in 2019. But COVID-19 has taken a big bite. Most dine-in options are closed. Sales plunged 57% from April 1-10 per National Restaurant Assn. McDonald’s sales fell 25% from mid-March to mid-April. While performance is gaining, lots of damage was done.
Restaurants, kitchens, drive-thrus and curbside are being designed for the COVID world. Vendors are adding self-serve kiosks, mobile apps for ordering and payment, GPS, and automated check-in to create frictionless and contactless sales, also sequencing/timing fulfillment of off-premises orders for fresh, JIT pickup. They are exploring robots, drones, order bots and more. McDonald’s made three recent tech deals to leverage AI and automation, and added 50 procedures for dining room reopening. Starbucks is adding drive-thrus.
Fast food is changing. Vendors that fail to change will falter. MOSIMTEC has significant experience with fast food restaurant simulation. Dynamic modeling of walk-in, drive-thru, kitchen and other processes addresses staffing, cost, equipment, process delays, congestion, reliability, schedules, and more to improve performance and make real-time decisions. Technology lights the way. MOSIMTEC is here to help.
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