Fast-food worker replacement machine(momentummachines.com)
momentummachines.com
Fast-food worker replacement machine
http://momentummachines.com/#product
7 comments
Easy, take all the parts that need to be cleaned and convert it into disposable laminated paper product or plastic. The employee at the end of the night just removes the dirty ones and replaces it with clean ones. The tubes for example could be disposable.
The conveyer belt would have to have a wax paper or laminated sheet wrapped around the belt and affixed in place.
The only thing that would have to be cleaned is the cooking surface and grinding mechanism, which should be trivial.
You basically would need one employee to fill the device hoppers with fresh ingredients in the morning, babysit the device for the day adding more ingredients as necessary and then break the machine down at night and set it up again for the following day. I estimate 20 minutes labor in the morning and 40-60 at night. A huge savings for the ability to pump out 3600 decent burgers over a 10 hour work day.
The conveyer belt would have to have a wax paper or laminated sheet wrapped around the belt and affixed in place.
The only thing that would have to be cleaned is the cooking surface and grinding mechanism, which should be trivial.
You basically would need one employee to fill the device hoppers with fresh ingredients in the morning, babysit the device for the day adding more ingredients as necessary and then break the machine down at night and set it up again for the following day. I estimate 20 minutes labor in the morning and 40-60 at night. A huge savings for the ability to pump out 3600 decent burgers over a 10 hour work day.
I have been following this for a little while and their site hasn't changed much since 2012 - if at all. I am really curious to see what they are doing now.
Many of the founders' angel.co profiles don't show any other employment but beyond that I haven't seen much else from these folks, on twitter or otherwise.
Anyone know?
Many of the founders' angel.co profiles don't show any other employment but beyond that I haven't seen much else from these folks, on twitter or otherwise.
Anyone know?
Great, let's eliminate the last remaining service sector jobs! What could go wrong?
Better to plug our ears, cover our eyes, and pretend that the technology doesn't exist, right? Automation is going to displace workers (and it should). This is certain and it's something we need to prepare for. The transition may be painful, but the end game is that humans are no longer required to work to survive. This is a "Good Thing."
People are not just required to work because there's so much work to do, but because they need income, so they can consume, take on debt, service it, etc. No work means no income means no consumption means no economic growth means we won't be able to service our national debt or take on new loans.
I'd go as far as saying a non-trivial proportion of service sector jobs is only necessary to keep deprecated business models going, not because they are indispensable or add actual value to the economy.
The cynical conclusion to draw is that the common man will always be a working debt slave. A history of over 200 years of automation seems to support this conclusion, as people only have to work more and more to make ends meet.
I'd go as far as saying a non-trivial proportion of service sector jobs is only necessary to keep deprecated business models going, not because they are indispensable or add actual value to the economy.
The cynical conclusion to draw is that the common man will always be a working debt slave. A history of over 200 years of automation seems to support this conclusion, as people only have to work more and more to make ends meet.
I didn't say to pretend it's not there, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Employment is a serious issue and handwaving about painful, but worthwhile transitions to some utopia we aren't going to see in our lifetime doesn't seem realistic to me.
We're not going to reach that utopia if there's an anti-capitalist revolution first.
We're not going to reach that utopia if there's an anti-capitalist revolution first.
And what could go right?
> ...frees up all of the hamburger line cooks...
Frees them up for what? Unemployment?
Frees them up for what? Unemployment?
One special McDonalds ticket to machine-repair college, let's replace the workers with technicians and then make THOSE jobs minimum wage.
That'll be the future. People groaning at minimum wage jobs for repairing current-day minimum wage jobs.
That'll be the future. People groaning at minimum wage jobs for repairing current-day minimum wage jobs.
Having actually worked on McD's kitchen tech, the corporation is extremely specific about their technology design including the amount of repair calls allowed per machine per year.
I can guarantee this machine would never make that metric. And I'd really like to see what this machine looks like after making 40 burgers, much less 400 or 4000. 40,000? Forget it.
Cooking and handling animal protein is a very messy job. Letting semi-skilled workers load raw beef into a hopper? That's a non-starter right there for a company like McDonald's.
I can guarantee this machine would never make that metric. And I'd really like to see what this machine looks like after making 40 burgers, much less 400 or 4000. 40,000? Forget it.
Cooking and handling animal protein is a very messy job. Letting semi-skilled workers load raw beef into a hopper? That's a non-starter right there for a company like McDonald's.
Disposable meat hoppers changed daily. Specialized cleaning machine with high pressure water and autoclave temperatures for blasting the disassembled grinding mechanism and sterilizing it. All that is left is cleaning the cooking surface, which is already normal in every diner.
So let's simplify the process by adding more equipment and expense? It doesn't make sense at all.
A group like McDs has had half a century to figure out the most effective way to make this stuff, make it cheaply, and make it safely (for both crew and customer). This is not a direction anyone like them would take.
A group like McDs has had half a century to figure out the most effective way to make this stuff, make it cheaply, and make it safely (for both crew and customer). This is not a direction anyone like them would take.
Disposable paper hoppers are hardly an expense worth worrying about considering the costs it helps replace (salaries, health insurance, other benefits, other liabilities).
Once the machine proves effective, they are likely to identify impeding factors like labor cost of cleaning and figure out how to minimize those costs.
A simply food-safe inner-laminated (possibly PTFE) non-woven material would be perfect for these machines. Easy to package and ship in collapsed form to McD's around the country and extremely cheap to manufacture, especially at McD's scale.
The main factor preventing McD's from adopting this is the cost of ingredients. This machine most likely requires all beef chuck, without fillers to achieve the desired quality level.
Once the machine proves effective, they are likely to identify impeding factors like labor cost of cleaning and figure out how to minimize those costs.
A simply food-safe inner-laminated (possibly PTFE) non-woven material would be perfect for these machines. Easy to package and ship in collapsed form to McD's around the country and extremely cheap to manufacture, especially at McD's scale.
The main factor preventing McD's from adopting this is the cost of ingredients. This machine most likely requires all beef chuck, without fillers to achieve the desired quality level.
No, the main factor in this is asking McDs to change their distribution from frozen patties (safer to handle and easier to work with at the kitchen level) to refrigerated raw product, which increases the risk of contamination, cross-contamination, and spoilage to extremely hazardous levels. The HAACP requirements alone would be staggering. It doesn't matter what's in the beef.
This is a very interesting pitch to the consumer: gourmet food/higher quality ingredients at fast food prices.
This is entirely different from the imagined pitch to investors: same food, cheaper production, higher profits.
It will be fascinating to see what they come up with and how they productize - it sounds like they think equipment sales is just an ancillary revenue source or something they "might do later" at present, but perhaps they'll change their minds if and when they have functioning burger bots.
This is entirely different from the imagined pitch to investors: same food, cheaper production, higher profits.
It will be fascinating to see what they come up with and how they productize - it sounds like they think equipment sales is just an ancillary revenue source or something they "might do later" at present, but perhaps they'll change their minds if and when they have functioning burger bots.
I'm not sure if they can deliver on the custom grind promise. I know that supermarkets have to grind in a specific order: roughly cow, pig, chicken: lower required cooking temperature to higher.
Is every burger going to be well-done?
Is every burger going to be well-done?
Presumably a self-clean in between grinder changes is not entirely difficult though.
I'm skeptical that "gourmet" food can be made by a machine. Perhaps it is "artisanal" as well?
The big problem isn't keeping cheap sh*tty food cheap, it's keeping the restaurants clean enough you don't feel dirty when you leave. That is a social and managerial problem, and you don't fix it with magical meat grinder machine.