The Digital Transformation of the Fast Food Kitchen

In this video series, our Industries eXcellence experts invite you on a journey through time in order to highlight the diverse types of customers we work with and the massive technological changes that have shaped American manufacturing in the last century. In our first episode, Andrea Salerno, PLM Practice Manager at Engineering USA, explores the past, present, future and digital transformation of the fast food industry and the commercial kitchen.

Interested in speaking to one of our experts? Contact us at info@indx.com.

Full Transcript

Hi, my name is Andrea Salerno and I am the PLM Practice Manager at Engineering Industries eXcellence. Today, I am going to take you on a journey through time to showcase how our Industries eXcellence division is helping shape the future of American manufacturing. This is the past, present, and future of fast food and the commercial kitchen.

The 1950s were a time where Americans started to move like they had never moved before. With the drastic increase of cars and trucks on the road, life in America had a new fast lane. To serve these mobile masses, fast food restaurants started popping up all over the country. Entrepreneurs were quick to come up with gimmicks to turn fast food into fast profits, marketing to the typical American family, all to fuel popularity. And it worked.

Now, what has happened to the fast food industry since then? Besides growth, there has been a digital revolution within the fast food restaurant. Technology is at the heart of this revolution, powering many of the features we see today that enhance customer service, including self-serve kiosks, online ordering and an endless number of food delivery apps.

But the digital revolution has not only impacted the customer side of the fast food experience. As the food culture changed, so did the demands of the commercial kitchen. This posed a whole new set of challenges for manufacturers of kitchen equipment. Some examples of these challenges include the broad range of commercial kitchen sizes and the growing demand for smart connected equipment. But the challenge that I would like to focus on today is the concept of “engineered-to-order.”

If you're not familiar with the concept of engineered-to-order, let me give you an example. Let us say that you are online shopping for a brand new car. You can select the color of the car, the color of the interior, sunroof or no sunroof…you get the idea. Essentially, the design of the product is linked to manufacturing once that custom order is submitted. This concept can be applied to all kinds of products: shoes, bicycles, and believe it or not, kitchen equipment.

This was an obstacle faced by one of our U.S. customers, an American manufacturer and global supplier of commercial kitchen equipment. They are an industry leader and the primary vendor for many fast food chains, including Chick-Fil-A, Wendy's and McDonald's. By serving over 80 different countries, they offer 134 configurable products that result in over 1 million product options. One million product options is an enormous amount of data that must be properly managed and readily available to be sent to the manufacturing floor when the customer submits their order.

We partnered with our customer for an Industry 4.0 Assessment. Our experts were able to execute an in-depth analysis of all their different business groups, IT systems and current processes. Our assessment resulted in the recommendation on how to best manage all their product data by integrating their customer portal with their data management system. This provided our customer with a synchronized product configuration tool. In the end, our solution helped bridge the gap between their customers, engineering and the manufacturing floor.

So, what will the kitchens of the not-too-distant future become? Will we have refrigerators that won't let food spoil, dishwashers that won't need soap or completely robotic-controlled kitchens? From robots to microchip-powered ordering systems, technology will continue to play an increasingly important role in an industry where speed and efficiency are critical. Our team at Engineering Industries eXcellence will continue to help build the future of this industry, and we are excited for what's ahead!