• Future Construction

    From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Wed Sep 7 09:41:08 2022
    On 9/7/22 08:37, Moondog wrote:

    On NPR I heard an interview with a sci-fi writer who wrote a
    story about a young man from a poor little town in Mexico
    reading about job opportunities in Mexico city.
    ...
    It turns out the other operator is working out of Pakistan and
    the loader operator is from Australia. Nobody running
    equipment is from the place they are working.

    Very cool concept... that said, latency is a real thing and I can see
    that scenario playing out with some very serious injuries and death over time... you won't be "real time" ... you'll need to program paths, and
    have time windows for clear site times. Since there will still need to
    be people on-site.

    If you look at current high-rise construction in the middle east with floors/pods built offsite and assembled onsite, that is probably a more reasonable division of labor. Those pods can be built/shipped from many different spots around the world, and if design and construction can
    target global projects at once, the same technique can be used much more broadly.

    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were
    "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy a
    person's mind and transport that into another body... so for dangerous
    jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body. The main story included people actually swapping in place of physical transportation,
    but I don't know how well that would actually work.
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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANT to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 8 00:12:55 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Wed Sep 07 2022 01:41 pm

    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy a person's mind and transport that into another body... so for dangerous
    jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body. The main story included people actually swapping in place of physical transportation,
    but I don't know how well that would actually work.

    That sounds close to Surrogates, in which people lived in control pods at home and operated Androids who did everything for them. People didn't do the groceries, the Androids did. Since Androids were controled by a synaptic connection, for them it was just like beng there, but if the Android was accidentally ran over, or suffered an industrial accident, the human in charge was safe.

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 8 06:26:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Wed Sep 07 2022 01:41 pm

    On 9/7/22 08:37, Moondog wrote:

    On NPR I heard an interview with a sci-fi writer who wrote a
    story about a young man from a poor little town in Mexico
    reading about job opportunities in Mexico city.
    ...
    It turns out the other operator is working out of Pakistan and
    the loader operator is from Australia. Nobody running
    equipment is from the place they are working.

    Very cool concept... that said, latency is a real thing and I can see
    that scenario playing out with some very serious injuries and death over time... you won't be "real time" ... you'll need to program paths, and
    have time windows for clear site times. Since there will still need to
    be people on-site.

    If you look at current high-rise construction in the middle east with floors/pods built offsite and assembled onsite, that is probably a more reasonable division of labor. Those pods can be built/shipped from many different spots around the world, and if design and construction can
    target global projects at once, the same technique can be used much more broadly.

    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy a person's mind and transport that into another body... so for dangerous
    jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body. The main story included people actually swapping in place of physical transportation,
    but I don't know how well that would actually work.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com


    Yeha, the latency and dropped packets would mess things up. i get the impression the story was about taking outsourcing of labor from lower wage nations to an extreme. Programming and call processing has been done for decades in other countries. it freaked me out when i heard some fast food chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Arelor on Thu Sep 8 15:59:16 2022
    On 9/8/22 02:12, Arelor wrote:
    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were
    "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy
    a person's mind and transport that into another body... so for
    dangerous jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body.
    The main story included people actually swapping in place of
    physical transportation, but I don't know how well that would
    actually work.

    That sounds close to Surrogates, in which people lived in control
    pods at home and operated Androids who did everything for them.
    People didn't do the groceries, the Androids did. Since Androids
    were controled by a synaptic connection, for them it was just like
    beng there, but if the Android was accidentally ran over, or
    suffered an industrial accident, the human in charge was safe.

    It is Xchange - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242150/
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Thu Sep 8 16:07:38 2022
    On 9/8/22 07:26, Moondog wrote:

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

    Really depends... if the connection, noise filtering and audio is good
    as well as the person on the other end being a better than average
    listener, it's entirely possible to have an order taker that is better
    than what any given location could have and provide broader coverage
    than said dedicated person. You can have 50 order takers that are
    better covering 60-80+ locations with the dead time between orders to.

    I'd rather it were native language speakers, again with better than
    average listening and comprehension as well as sufficient order taking
    ability for custom orders.
    --
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Moondog on Fri Sep 9 04:44:03 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 08 2022 10:26 am

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

    This is the first time I've heard of that.. How would that work? The call center would then have to be in contact with the local restaurant. I'm wondering what the point is of even doing that? I can't imagine it would cost less to do that than to just have a local employee at the drive-thru taking orders? Having a remote call center for that seems like it would be a fairly convoluted setup..

    Nightfox

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Fri Sep 9 07:18:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Thu Sep 08 2022 08:07 pm

    On 9/8/22 07:26, Moondog wrote:

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from y phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, India

    Really depends... if the connection, noise filtering and audio is good
    as well as the person on the other end being a better than average
    listener, it's entirely possible to have an order taker that is better
    than what any given location could have and provide broader coverage
    than said dedicated person. You can have 50 order takers that are
    better covering 60-80+ locations with the dead time between orders to.

    I'd rather it were native language speakers, again with better than
    average listening and comprehension as well as sufficient order taking ability for custom orders.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com


    Agreed. I guess I'm thinking old school like the engineers that didn't see
    an IC as a single module, but see it as several hundred good transistors, and one or two bad ones. Either way the two or three are not serviceable.

    I grew up witthe concept of local and long distance calling, and the telco would
    rape you over long distance calls. From that point of view it seems wasteful even though it's not.

    The best resolution is the phone app. If your order is screwed up, chances
    are you were the one who keyed the special order wrong.

    ---
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  • From esc@VERT/MONTEREY to Tracker1 on Fri Sep 9 08:05:00 2022
    I'd rather it were native language speakers, again with better than average listening and comprehension as well as sufficient order taking ability for custom orders.

    I'd rather pull humans out of the service loop entirely. Customer enters in exactly what they want via an app and a machine builds the order precisely.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Nightfox on Fri Sep 9 12:53:33 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Nightfox to Moondog on Fri Sep 09 2022 08:44 am

    By: Moondog to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 08 2022 10:26 am

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from
    This is the first time I've heard of that.. How would that work? The call center would then have to be in contact with the local restaurant. I'm wondering what the point is of even doing that? I can't imagine it would cost less to do that than to just have a local employee at the drive-thru taking orders? Having a remote call center for that seems like it would be


    i had a side job where we sanitized and repaired kids playlands.
    no WAY could a call center handle that stuff. they are so fast paced.
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to esc on Fri Sep 9 12:54:55 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: esc to Tracker1 on Fri Sep 09 2022 12:05 pm

    I'd rather it were native language speakers, again with better than average listening and comprehension as well as sufficient order taking ability for custom orders.

    I'd rather pull humans out of the service loop entirely. Customer enters in exactly what they want via an app and a machine builds the order precisely.

    okay think of it this way: who cleans the machine? will that guy have time to clean the machine if he's the only human there?
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Nightfox on Fri Sep 9 16:18:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Nightfox to Moondog on Fri Sep 09 2022 08:44 am

    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 08 2022 10:26 am

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a wast in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

    This is the first time I've heard of that.. How would that work? The call t have a local employee at the drive-thru taking orders? Having a remote ca

    Nightfox


    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you order from phone app then
    go through drive thru lane.

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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 06:59:20 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Nightfox on Fri Sep 09 2022 08:18 pm


    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you order from phone app then
    go through drive thru lane.

    so who is doing this? because i do not know of any popular one in the usa that uses it.
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 07:29:34 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 10:59 am

    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Nightfox on Fri Sep 09 2022 08:18 pm


    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you order from phone app then
    go through drive thru lane.

    so who is doing this? because i do not know of any popular one in the usa that uses it.

    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a few places. it's just testing, though.
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to MRO on Sat Sep 10 07:43:05 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:29 am

    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the
    smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is
    made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you
    order from phone app then

    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a few places. it's just testing, though.

    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a fast food restaurant. I'd think it would be cheaper and easier for them to set up an order kiosk or something at the drive thru. We might also be able to set up an automated voice system to take orders.

    Nightfox

    ---
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 10:32:34 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Nightfox to MRO on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:43 am


    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a fast food restaurant. I'd think it would be cheaper and easier for them to set up an order kiosk or something at the drive thru. We might also be able to set up an automated voice system to take orders.

    i've been in the back of mcdonalds a lot in this past like 7 months.
    i was going in the back to get hot water for our floor scrubber for the kids play areas.

    they are fast and optimized. there's no way to speed it up or improve.
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to MRO on Sat Sep 10 13:25:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 10:59 am

    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Nightfox on Fri Sep 09 2022 08:18 pm


    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you order from ph app then
    go through drive thru lane.

    so who is doing this? because i do not know of any popular one in the usa th

    Right now no one is doing it, I just discovered. McDonalds ran a test of it
    10 years ago. back in April another chain tried something similar using emplo yees working at home taking drive thru orders.

    McDonalds does things like that, then changed their minds. About 15 years
    ago they came up with an automated kitchen module that could cook burgers to t he right temp and assemble and wrap sandwiches and operate the deep fryer. IIRC it could also fill drinks. the idea behind it was to operate stores overnight which normally shut down, and run less staff. The only human interaction other than service was to load the components into their hoppers and clear an occasional jam.

    Ten years back Carls Jr and a couple other chain spoke of doing the same because of surveys taken by customers indicated that millenials didn't like loo
    king at the workers in the kitchen, and some customers preferred a robot make their food and not screw it up.

    The reason why McDonalds stopped testing was not because it wouldn't work. Th e testing ran fine. Automation of every store would displace 5 million employees nationwide. Now imagine Burger King and several other chains all di splacing 5 million emplyees? I don't know if McDonalds still does it, but
    they used to advertise they were a driving force in creating entry level jobs in communities. 5 million people would prove them wrong.

    ---
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 15:59:09 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to MRO on Sat Sep 10 2022 05:25 pm

    Right now no one is doing it, I just discovered. McDonalds ran a test of it 10 years ago. back in April another chain tried something similar using emplo yees working at home taking drive thru orders.

    McDonalds does things like that, then changed their minds. About 15 years

    they are testing things and if they don't work, they don't use them.
    there's notihng wrong with that.

    but
    they used to advertise they were a driving force in creating entry level jobs in communities. 5 million people would prove them wrong.

    dude they pay 15 bucks or more an hour and will pay for schooling.
    that's pretty good for entry level.
    who's the 5 million people who would prove them wrong?
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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 09:57:07 2022
    On 9/9/22 08:18, Moondog wrote:

    The best resolution is the phone app. If your order is screwed up,
    chances are you were the one who keyed the special order wrong.

    That assumes the app actually lets you order something how you want it.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 10:22:58 2022
    On 9/10/22 11:43, Nightfox wrote:
    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a
    few places. it's just testing, though.

    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a
    fast food restaurant. I'd think it would be cheaper and easier
    for them to set up an order kiosk or something at the drive thru.
    We might also be able to set up an automated voice system to take
    orders.

    It depends... those order kiosks are pretty costly, saw a 42" touch
    display one at a McD's on my last road trip. And I don't think it would
    work well in a drive through scenario.

    How much is it to use the internet connection already likely available,
    to a cheap computer and operator that costs half what a US employee
    costs... Now that single employee can cover 1.5-3x as many orders as a
    single employee at a single location... now scale that to
    hundreds/thousands of locations... you've now saved millions a month.

    Single employee/location * 2 shifts = ~$8000/month

    1000 locations = $8m/month

    Remote employees costing half as much, covering up to 3 locations per employee..

    $8m / 2 / 3 = ~$1.4m/month

    Just saved the company $6.6m a month... And that's assuming locations
    are only open 16 hrs a day. And it doesn't preclude research that would completely replace employees in the longer term.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
    ---
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Tracker1 on Sat Sep 10 17:53:01 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 2022 02:22 pm


    How much is it to use the internet connection already likely available,
    to a cheap computer and operator that costs half what a US employee
    costs... Now that single employee can cover 1.5-3x as many orders as a single employee at a single location... now scale that to
    hundreds/thousands of locations... you've now saved millions a month.

    Single employee/location * 2 shifts = ~$8000/month


    as i mentioned before, i have been in the back of mcdonalds quite a bit.
    those people work far hard and very fast. all of them. i don't think there's any replacement for those people. it can not be optomized any more and you can't throw in a computer to weed out the human element. in this situation the human element is the fastest, best way.
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 19:19:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Nightfox to MRO on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:43 am

    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:29 am

    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the
    smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is >> made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you >> order from phone app then

    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a few plac it's just testing, though.

    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a fast food rest take orders.

    Nightfox

    That's what probably cancelled that project. This spring they were testing employees taking orders from home, then routing the orders to the smashboxes.
    if the data connection is robust enough, it doesn't matter who takes your order. It's all about doing it cheaper and pocketing extra money.

    ---
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  • From esc@VERT/MONTEREY to MRO on Sat Sep 10 21:50:00 2022
    okay think of it this way: who cleans the machine? will that guy have time to clean the machine if he's the only human there?

    I see your point but I don't think this will be something difficult to overcome honestly.

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to MRO on Sun Sep 11 08:33:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 07:59 pm

    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to MRO on Sat Sep 10 2022 05:25 pm

    Right now no one is doing it, I just discovered. McDonalds ran a test of 10 years ago. back in April another chain tried something similar using emplo yees working at home taking drive thru orders.

    McDonalds does things like that, then changed their minds. About 15 year

    they are testing things and if they don't work, they don't use them.
    there's notihng wrong with that.

    but
    they used to advertise they were a driving force in creating entry level jobs in communities. 5 million people would prove them wrong.

    dude they pay 15 bucks or more an hour and will pay for schooling.
    that's pretty good for entry level.
    who's the 5 million people who would prove them wrong?

    Covid changed things which forced them to provide better incentives to retain employees, but if that wasn';t the case and kitchens were automated , that is the only way we could see if their estimates were correct

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Sun Sep 11 08:35:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 01:57 pm

    On 9/9/22 08:18, Moondog wrote:

    The best resolution is the phone app. If your order is screwed up, chances are you were the one who keyed the special order wrong.

    That assumes the app actually lets you order something how you want it.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    Isn't that the issue why items get screwed up through the drive thru already?

    ---
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Sun Sep 11 08:42:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 2022 02:22 pm

    On 9/10/22 11:43, Nightfox wrote:
    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a
    few places. it's just testing, though.

    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a
    fast food restaurant. I'd think it would be cheaper and easier
    for them to set up an order kiosk or something at the drive thru.
    We might also be able to set up an automated voice system to take
    orders.

    It depends... those order kiosks are pretty costly, saw a 42" touch
    display one at a McD's on my last road trip. And I don't think it would work well in a drive through scenario.

    How much is it to use the internet connection already likely available,
    to a cheap computer and operator that costs half what a US employee
    costs... Now that single employee can cover 1.5-3x as many orders as a single employee at a single location... now scale that to
    hundreds/thousands of locations... you've now saved millions a month.

    Single employee/location * 2 shifts = ~$8000/month

    1000 locations = $8m/month

    Remote employees costing half as much, covering up to 3 locations per employee..

    $8m / 2 / 3 = ~$1.4m/month

    Just saved the company $6.6m a month... And that's assuming locations
    are only open 16 hrs a day. And it doesn't preclude research that would completely replace employees in the longer term.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    The call center stuff was tried well before phone apps really took off. Last time I drove through a drive thru, they asked if I used the app and picking
    up, or making an order right there?

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net
  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to MRO on Sun Sep 11 08:46:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Tracker1 on Sat Sep 10 2022 09:53 pm

    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 2022 02:22 pm


    How much is it to use the internet connection already likely available, to a cheap computer and operator that costs half what a US employee costs... Now that single employee can cover 1.5-3x as many orders as a single employee at a single location... now scale that to hundreds/thousands of locations... you've now saved millions a month.

    Single employee/location * 2 shifts = ~$8000/month


    as i mentioned before, i have been in the back of mcdonalds quite a bit. those people work far hard and very fast. all of them. i don't think there's astest, best way.

    I feel for those workers when it is lunch time or the dinner rush comes through. The drive thru's are backed up to the road, and the lobby is
    packed. If an order is screwed up, it offsets all the other orders and increa ses time the customer has to wait.

    ---
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Moondog on Sun Sep 11 08:41:29 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:19 pm


    That's what probably cancelled that project. This spring they were testing employees taking orders from home, then routing the orders to the smashboxes.

    what the hell is a smash box.

    smashboxes.
    if the data connection is robust enough, it doesn't matter who takes your order. It's all about doing it cheaper and pocketing extra money.


    go into a mcdonalds and ask them if you can look in the back if you can't already see back there. it's not that big and they will probably let you.

    you cant get more efficient than what they have now. there's no way.
    they are doing maximum work with minimum people.
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to esc on Sun Sep 11 08:43:23 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: esc to MRO on Sun Sep 11 2022 01:50 am

    okay think of it this way: who cleans the machine? will that guy have time to clean the machine if he's the only human there?

    I see your point but I don't think this will be something difficult to overcome honestly.

    well you really need to go there and look at how they work instead of standing in line with your eyes wandering. mcdonalds is at peak performance with minimal staffing.
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Moondog on Sun Sep 11 08:56:05 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to MRO on Sun Sep 11 2022 12:33 pm

    Covid changed things which forced them to provide better incentives to retain employees, but if that wasn';t the case and kitchens were automated ,

    mcdonalds has deep pockets. if an automated kitchen could be done, it would be done.
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to MRO on Sun Sep 11 17:55:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sun Sep 11 2022 12:41 pm

    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:19 pm


    That's what probably cancelled that project. This spring they were testi employees taking orders from home, then routing the orders to the smashboxes.

    what the hell is a smash box.

    smashboxes.
    if the data connection is robust enough, it doesn't matter who takes you order. It's all about doing it cheaper and pocketing extra money.


    go into a mcdonalds and ask them if you can look in the back if you can't al

    you cant get more efficient than what they have now. there's no way.
    they are doing maximum work with minimum people.

    A smash box (or is it mash box?) has four buttons and a monitor connection.
    It feeds the display of what is going out, and whether it is for here or to
    go. They normally seen by the service area of the counter or between the counter an drive through, and others are by the prep stations.

    Under the hood it's a fairly basic industrial pc that boots from a rom, then grabs it's other configuration off of flash. It's used like a dumb terminal.
    the four or more buttons allow the user to page through the orders, then clear them. The cpu is fairly low end by todays standards (486 class cpu,
    air cooled) and a keyboard and usb ports are accessible with the cover plate removed. Newer models may have ethernet connections, but most of what I've seen had 9pin rs 232 serial ports.

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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Moondog on Mon Sep 12 10:32:31 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to MRO on Sun Sep 11 2022 09:55 pm

    Under the hood it's a fairly basic industrial pc that boots from a rom, then grabs it's other configuration off of flash. It's used like a dumb terminal.
    the four or more buttons allow the user to page through the orders, then clear them. The cpu is fairly low end by todays standards (486 class cpu, air cooled) and a keyboard and usb ports are accessible with the cover plate removed. Newer models may have ethernet connections, but most of what I've seen had 9pin rs 232 serial ports.


    taco bell and burgerking might still have them. mcdonalds is pretty high tech now.
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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANT to MRO on Mon Sep 12 13:20:46 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:29 am

    so who is doing this? because i do not know of any popular one in the usa that uses it.

    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a few places. i ---

    I'd rather place my orders via a machine than deal with an offshored remote worker.

    At least in Spain, when they offshore remote workers, they always end up hiring people with accents so hard to understand it gives a very bad image to the firm.

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to MRO on Mon Sep 12 18:59:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Mon Sep 12 2022 02:32 pm

    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to MRO on Sun Sep 11 2022 09:55 pm

    Under the hood it's a fairly basic industrial pc that boots from a rom, then grabs it's other configuration off of flash. It's used like a dumb terminal.
    the four or more buttons allow the user to page through the orders, the clear them. The cpu is fairly low end by todays standards (486 class cpu air cooled) and a keyboard and usb ports are accessible with the cover pl removed. Newer models may have ethernet connections, but most of what I' seen had 9pin rs 232 serial ports.


    taco bell and burgerking might still have them. mcdonalds is pretty high te

    They're pretty common among fast food places. It's a metal babar with four
    or five switches under a display in most cases. The display plain text/ DOS graphics.

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Arelor on Mon Sep 12 19:51:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Arelor to MRO on Mon Sep 12 2022 05:20 pm

    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:29 am

    so who is doing this? because i do not know of any popular one in the that uses it.

    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a few places ---

    I'd rather place my orders via a machine than deal with an offshored remote worker.

    At least in Spain, when they offshore remote workers, they always end up hir people with accents so hard to understand it gives a very bad image to the firm.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken


    I used to watch a tech show, I think it was called Geek Nation when TechTV
    was still around. They did a story on three Indian workers who were pursuing
    a call center career. One place would interview you over a phone before hiring. The person would be in a little room with a phone, and the
    interviewer would be in the next room. They would be graded on their english skills and if they were technically skilled but lacked in the language department, they would be sent to a language school that several call centers used. Depending on the country and regions they were to service, they would teach slang and common references as well as smooth out their accent.
    Another candidate went through a similar course, except they would assist in cultural education. For example, if they were training to serve US
    customers, they would be required to locate states ont he map, identify which cities are in which states, and keep abreast of US news and events. While the first two schools concentrated on a neutral midwest US type accent, the thrid place would teach how to speak in a convincing accent of the region you are se rving. The reporter spoke with the instructor and some of the top students, and they were surprisingly good. They also had to learn culture and "sical studies", because a word out of place or slang used wrong would distract the customer, possibly creating feelings they are being deceived while the intent was to make them comfortable. For example, they would be given flash cards with pictures of people or items, and say what they are. A student training for a US call center was given a picture of a flashlight, and he responded
    with "torch." When shown a picture of Devil's Tower, he said Ayer's rock.

    In my personal opinion, I would be happy if they went to the school to learn how to speak in a neutral dialect.

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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Arelor on Wed Sep 21 21:11:38 2022
    On 9/12/22 15:20, Arelor wrote:

    I'd rather place my orders via a machine than deal with an
    offshored remote worker.

    At least in Spain, when they offshore remote workers, they always
    end up hiring people with accents so hard to understand it gives
    a very bad image to the firm.

    Shouldn't need to offshore at all... as I mentioned in another response
    with back of the napkin level math. You should easily be able to have
    one person be able to take 3x the number of orders or more when busy.
    There's a lot of down time between one person's order and another's most
    of the time... that can be spent taking an order from someone at another location.

    Mix in some general AI listening for "ready" and it could be slightly improved.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 22 09:54:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Arelor on Wed Sep 21 2022 09:11 pm

    On 9/12/22 15:20, Arelor wrote:

    I'd rather place my orders via a machine than deal with an
    offshored remote worker.

    At least in Spain, when they offshore remote workers, they always
    end up hiring people with accents so hard to understand it gives
    a very bad image to the firm.

    Shouldn't need to offshore at all... as I mentioned in another response
    with back of the napkin level math. You should easily be able to have
    one person be able to take 3x the number of orders or more when busy. There's a lot of down time between one person's order and another's most
    of the time... that can be spent taking an order from someone at another location.

    Mix in some general AI listening for "ready" and it could be slightly improved.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    In order to receive more orders, some drive thru's add a second lane and
    order board. That keeps them busy enough if all there's one pay window and th e pickup window only handles food. Some places have three windows, and the
    the first two handle payments, and sometimes drinks.

    ---
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 22 15:37:50 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Arelor on Wed Sep 21 2022 09:11 pm


    Shouldn't need to offshore at all... as I mentioned in another response
    with back of the napkin level math. You should easily be able to have
    one person be able to take 3x the number of orders or more when busy. There's a lot of down time between one person's order and another's most
    of the time... that can be spent taking an order from someone at another location.

    Mix in some general AI listening for "ready" and it could be slightly

    have you actually looked at how busy mcdonalds are? there's not a lot of downtime really. i was doing floors in the children's play areas and i'd have to go in the back for hot water. even at 8pm and later people were moving non stop.
    ---
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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Mon Sep 26 16:20:03 2022
    On 9/22/22 06:54, Moondog wrote:

    In order to receive more orders, some drive thru's add a second
    lane and order board. That keeps them busy enough if all there's
    one pay window and the pickup window only handles food. Some
    places have three windows, and the the first two handle payments,
    and sometimes drinks.

    It's looking like there are some designs (starting with taco bell) that actually has the restaurant kitchen above a drive through only setting
    with dumb waiters to ~6 drive through stations below. With extra
    waiting parking. Mostly to handle delivery services.

    Suggestions have been to do similar with ghost kitchens above in a
    similar way.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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