Pizza Today - May 2022 - 39

54 percent were fed up if they waited
more than 10 minutes for food.
One essential technology that
operators can implement to improve
speed of service is a Kitchen Display
System (KDS), a digital customer
order viewer that replaces the printed
paper ticket system. " KDS has widely
improved over the last couple of
years, " says Jay Bandy, president of
Goliath Consulting Group in Norcross,
Georgia. " There are a lot more
players. "
The basic components of a KDS
include color monitors that show all
the incoming orders, the time each
order was received, and how long
the tickets have been open. Each is
designated green, yellow and red, to
show whether the order was recently
received (green) or has been aging for
a long time (red). In addition to displaying
the orders clearly so kitchen
staff can prepare the food, the system
collects data so the restaurant owner
can decide how to schedule staff
appropriately.
These systems are available from
POS system vendors, Bandy says, and
some of the more innovative companies
offer artificial intelligence (AI)
solutions for ordering and preparing
food. When a customer orders
online, AI shows up as a chatbot, and
on the phone it can be an interactive
voice response (IVR) system. " What
it does is it reduces the number of
phone calls that you get on a Friday
night, " Bandy says. AI can automate
the kitchen flow, which saves labor.
" AI has learned the whole process of
pizza ordering or sandwich ordering.
Pizza has a finite number of ways a
customer can order. "
Connected pizza
One way to optimize kitchen
operations is by collecting and
using data. That involves connectivity
through the cloud, which starts with
setting up the right infrastructure and
the right equipment. Infrastructure
refers to WiFi, Ethernet and cellular
connectivity as a backup, and the
kitchen equipment must be able to
be linked so they can be monitored
remotely. " You are connecting fryers,
pizza conveyors and smart make
tables, " says Omar Jacques Omran,
vice president of digital transformation
and managing director of
KitchenConnect, a brand of Welbilt,
Inc. " Each one of those is a different
equipment category. "
By applying digital technology to
kitchen operations, the pizzeria owner
can analyze the data coming from all
the restaurant equipment. So while
one piece of equipment can give the
owner a glimpse of food cost issues
- for example, the smart make table
shows that the worker is weighing too
much cheese for each pie - the cloud
solution presents a bigger picture. " It
offers an overview of the products
cooked, peak demand hours, product
utilization and cleaning cycles, "
Omran says. " It allows cost savings
through over-the-air recipe pushes
and predictive maintenance, ensuring
less downtime while maintaining food
quality through online food safety
report retrieval. "
A cloud solution can also warn the
operator that the oven needs service,
which can prevent downtime and lost
sales. For even more connectivity,
operators can integrate front and back
of house technology. For example
order pickup lockers can hold the
food until the customer or delivery
driver arrives with a code to open the
locker and do contactless pickup. The
system also collects information such
as how long the order took to fill and
how long it was in the locker, which
can affect food safety.
Some assembly required
Robotics are emerging as a solution.
In January a Pizza Hut franchisee in
Israel announced the launch of an
unstaffed unit in a parking lot, where
customers order from the kiosk or
their phones and the robotics inside
the box assemble and bake the pizza.
While not all pizza establishments
have the resources to open a standalone
pizza-making robot, some of
the newest kitchen equipment has
taken routine tasks out of human
hands and into robotic arms, dispensing
portion-controlled toppings
and moving the pies into the oven
automatically.
Restaurant owners should choose
kitchen technology based not on
novelty but on the measurable
improvements the equipment provides.
" The ultimate goal is to reduce
labor, increase menu offerings and
improve speed of service, " says Richard
H. Eisenbarth, president emeritus
of the foodservice consultancy
Cini-Little, based in Germantown,
Maryland. " If you can reduce an FTE
[full-time equivalent] of labor in back
of house and put that person in front
of house for service, you're that much
better off. "
Eisenbarth, who is one of the judges
for the annual National Restaurant
Association Show's Kitchen Innovation
Awards, says new developments
include high-speed ovens that do not
need extra exhaust, and small combi
ovens that take up little space and
enable the kitchen to add a different
menu item. High-tech prep tables
have software that integrates with
the POS system, which streamlines
the ordering process, regulates the
refrigeration temperature and alerts
the owner that inventory is low.
" The big issue is labor, " Eisenbarth
says. " Anything you can do to reduce
that labor or better utilize the people
you do have is what's really going to
be important. "
NORA CALEY is a freelance writer who
covers small business, finance and lifestyle
topics.
Pizza Today - May 2022

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