[HN Gopher] White Castle wants to install robot cooks in 100 new...
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White Castle wants to install robot cooks in 100 new locations
Author : mono-bob
Score : 21 points
Date : 2022-03-14 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (misorobotics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (misorobotics.com)
| belval wrote:
| I wonder when the costs of scale will start to come in? This is
| interesting because it retrofits an existing kitchen, but it
| can't be much cheaper than just having something that was built
| from the ground-up to be an automated grill?
|
| Those arms are also usually in cages or somewhat enclosed for
| safety reasons, are employees just expected to walk around it?
| [deleted]
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| More photos on their product page, the arms are behind
| plexiglass. OTOH, they show an employee standing next to it
| while it handles baskets of hot oil. I would hope it had better
| safety lock-outs than that...
|
| https://misorobotics.com/flippy-2/
| mehrshad wrote:
| Back in the early 2010s, I was consulting with a then-budding
| startup called Momentum Machines (now Creator.rest), in which I
| was tasked with market validation for their Rube Goldberg-esque
| 6mx1mx2m burger-making machine (not a robot). When I'd speak with
| both independent and multi-franchise QSR owners, the resounding
| sentiment was that they absolutely craved an automated solution
| to replace line cooks, but they could not imagine replacing
| cashiers, who they believed were the face of the brand.
|
| But in speaking with the few corporate offices that would bother
| to even respond to us, we'd be brushed us aside as nothing more
| than a novelty, as they considered any introduction of automation
| anywhere in the food-assembly process to be a hit to their brand
| promise of "freshness" and "quality."
|
| Now with the Great Resignation giving employees a bit of an upper
| hand, I'm pretty sure the corporates are changing their tune in
| displacing the $15+/hr/unit meat suits ASAP. They're just waiting
| for the regional/tier-3 QSRs like White Castle to go all-in
| before making the plunge themselves.
|
| [0] https://www.creator.rest
| hwers wrote:
| This is kinda silly because I bet they could've made burgers with
| a robot long ago (mass produced and shipped in) and just heated
| it up from a frozen stage when you order. Part of me suspects the
| whole 'combining the meat with the bun' at-location component is
| kind of superfluous and is just there to make the food feel
| freshly made (despite being heavily produced). So this robot with
| that in mind is kind of silly.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| >just there to make the food feel freshly made
|
| There's a significant quality difference, even with mass-
| produced burger patties, cheese and sauce.
|
| Bread and meat don't respond well to the same treatments, and
| as anyone who's had a service-station pre-prepared sandwich
| knows - bread absorbs moisture and goes soggy/damp if prepared
| more than an hour or two before use. With fillings that need to
| be re-heated it gets worse. There are various ways that they
| try to fix this, generally by putting more fats/oils on.
|
| IMO I would rather have them prepared separately and combined
| at purchase time, even if it is the same ingredients that would
| be on a pre-prepared burger.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Right, I bet you could make a Jimmy-Dean vending machine that
| has an air-fryer conveyor belt on the way out, but you'd have a
| hard time finding investors because your robot isn't replacing
| fry-cooks. Actually I'd be surprised if this didn't already
| exist at truck stops next to the hot dog rollers.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| There's a real quality difference between a burger that's been
| reheated with bun next to meat and one without. The bun sucks a
| ton of moisture from the meat and makes it chewy, while
| becoming soggy itself. The burger is a lot colder in the
| center, while the outer edge of the bun becomes dry. You really
| do get a better experience heating them individually, even if
| just reheating the burger.
| threads2 wrote:
| bertil wrote:
| This is actually an area where automation has some significant
| potential. Taking orders with a menu on a webpage or an app is a
| classic at this point. I remember seeing not just vending
| machines, but a vending wall at Amsterdam Central train station
| where a chef would fill transparent boxes with freshly fried
| snacks, to be sold automatically.
|
| Cooking is an enormous working-class employer and it is getting
| automated -- will it lower demand for work? Most people still
| cook their own food, so there's a lot more cooking service that
| could be sold, but at this point, the economies of scale point at
| fewer people manning the frier, and just one person monitoring
| several robots.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > will it lower demand for work?
|
| Commoditization of Compliments.
|
| If it's cheaper to make food using automation, then some
| complimentary component of food service is going to capture
| some of the dollars saved. For example, we could see food
| trucks that make your food while en route and the truck pulls
| up and delivers it fresh.
|
| Or, more simply, we could see commissaries/"ghost kitchens"
| capable of serving a larger variety of food with fewer people
| pop up in suburban strip malls. Maybe they could have a
| rotating menu. A small restaurant like that could pull down a
| few million in revenue each year even in less populated states,
| which is more than enough to pay good wages if the number of
| operators can be kept to <4 people.
|
| Most of them now have several operators making a limited
| selection of food.
| [deleted]
| pokoleo wrote:
| I've been wondering: if this robot is only flipping fries, could
| it be made by putting the basket on a simple track, and adding an
| actuator to move the basket along a track? Why need an arm?
|
| My speculation: a robotic arm makes for a great press release.
| Actuator + track feels like a factory.
| jcims wrote:
| Advantage of something like this is that it can more easily be
| retrofitted to existing stores with existing equipment. Might
| cost $100K per arm but that's way cheaper than two months of
| downtime and $250k reconfiguring the store with some kind of
| fry belt.
| forgotmyoldacc wrote:
| I'm skeptical that Miso Robotics can actually deliver a useful
| product that outperforms or matches human labor at the same price
| point. They don't show clear videos of what exactly the robot is
| capable of, and keep buying Instagram ads to invest in their
| company.
| giantg2 wrote:
| White Castle already ran a pilot with the Miso 1 and then the
| Miso 2. It seems they see value. Maybe the tasks are different
| for White Castle with many small burgers vs the fewer large
| burgers at other places?
| savant_penguin wrote:
| I wonder what is the amortized cost of this robot and how it
| compares with the wages of the human cooks
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