101–110 of 114 posts
That robotic arm is the salary of a dominos employee for 10+ years.
There's nothing intrinsically expensive about a robot arm. It's few motors, sensors, metal, plastic, and something like a raspberry pi. With cheaper components and volume production a robot arm could cost less than a Domino's employee makes in a week.
This is either going to end up dominating the food delivery business (unlikely, but possible) or present yet another case study in Silicon Valley delusions. It's entirely possible, easy even, to automate the pizza making process. You can go to the grocery store and purchase frozen pizzas which have never been touched by human hands. Exactly none of them are made by industrial robots. Industrial robots cost more than…
- How much power (or propane or whatever) do you need to run these ovens?
- How much heat they emit in the truck, as a waste? Looks like some cooling is required. How much power for that.
- What is the power source for the above items. Fuel, propane, batteries?
- It kind of looks dangerous to have fuel or propane or batteries next to a bunch of running ovens? If so, where to put the fuel and where to put the engine.
- Having flammable cardboard where the ovens are looks too dangerous. How do they get the pizza from the oven to the cardboard? I hope it's not the poor driver squeezing between a bunch of running ovens to get to the right one and get the pizza out?
Unfortunately this means that Domino's will be competing in the space very soon, which I hoped would be open for disruption for another few years; but at least I have the comfort that comes from knowing that Canada is 5-10 years behind trends, even with multinational corporations (Apple Pay just got here, for instance), giving me plenty of time to get a Blue Ocean strategy developed while everyone fights over small parts of the (ahem) pie.
If Zume moves to Canada rapidly, I'll definitely start to sweat. Right now, I'll be cheering them on while sitting on the sidelines. The sooner that crap pizzas like Dominos or Pizza Hut are outclassed by smaller startups the way that Uber outclassed taxi companies, the better we all are as a society.
Puff piece -- the idea of cooking pizzas in a truck is a good one, but the whole 'robotics' angle is a little trite. The only automated part seemed to be the sauce (which Costco does) and moving the pizza to the oven. I like the moving-pizza-truck idea, it's a shame this had to go the route of 'robotic pizzeria' since it's so blatantly a puff piece.
Plus they keep forgetting that people are cheaper robots. A VC our family knows designed in 90's SmartMart: a convenience store that was totally automated. You order at fuel-pump looking Kiosks, robots pull it from stock, and machine delivers it to your car as you pay. To think grocers brag about mere self-checkouts. Unfortunately, the SmartMarts cost around $10 mil versus about $1 mil for stores underpaying & overwo…
Technology got better, and cheaper. That puts previously-unattainable goals within reach.
Would you argue that a $15/hour McDonald's employee will be cost-competitive with a Big Mac machine nowadays?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus they keep forgetting that people are cheaper robots. A VC our family knows designed in 90's SmartMart: a convenience store that was totally automated. You order at fuel-pump looking Kiosks, robots pull it from stock, and machine delivers it to your car as you pay. To think grocers brag about mere self-checkouts. Unfortunately, the SmartMarts cost around $10 mil versus about $1 mil for stores underpaying & overwo…
Anecdotal evidence from 20+ years ago seems like the common argument against Virtual Reality, as well. Technology got better, and cheaper. That puts previously-unattainable goals within reach. Would you argue that a $15/hour McDonald's employee will be cost-competitive with a Big Mac machine nowadays?
Far as machines, depends on how cost of installation, maintenance, and licensing vs humans it replaces. Varies case by case.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotal evidence from 20+ years ago seems like the common argument against Virtual Reality, as well. Technology got better, and cheaper. That puts previously-unattainable goals within reach. Would you argue that a $15/hour McDonald's employee will be cost-competitive with a Big Mac machine nowadays?
Depends on cost of a machine. Plus, McDonalds is a weak even if common example. Many companies push employees go focus on good service or at least sales (esp upselling). Computers still arent as good at that with a good chunk of customers rejecting them outright in such uses. Far as machines, depends on how cost of installation, maintenance, and licensing vs humans it replaces. Varies case by case.
The bigger point (and the dirty secret of globalism) is that nobody can really afford labor, especially multinationals.
0. http://www.inquisitr.com/1594675/mcdonalds-counters-minimum-...
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So if you are a deep pizza nerd, the pitch that you'd have a neo-neapolitan style pizza at your door in short order is a great pitch. The issue with fulfilling this pitch is that pizzaiolos are expensive, hot ovens are hard to get close to people, etc. etc. Trying to solve all this is probably at one level a 'passion project' for a Valley engineer. A true 90 second Neapolitan pizza does not age that well, the crust i…
What's the difference between pizza and other delivery based business making such high margins ?
I tried this, as they had a coupon for a free pizza in Mountain View. The pizza was just ok, and considering the many choices around here for really good pizza, I probably won't actually pay for one of theirs unless I have some indication that the quality has improved.
That's what I care about. Interesting to hear it's only ok. There's another startup called pi (app is now called Pythagoras) that's also trying to reinvent much about pizza, and theirs is currently my fav pizza in SF (certainly for delivery). Plus it's delivered within 15 min from request!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what I care about. Interesting to hear it's only ok. There's another startup called pi (app is now called Pythagoras) that's also trying to reinvent much about pizza, and theirs is currently my fav pizza in SF (certainly for delivery). Plus it's delivered within 15 min from request!
as far as I can tell they arn't doing much from an automation side other than contracting with a kitchen and using an app with UberRush. Also, there charging $20 for a pizza with a very small deliveyr area.
$20 delivery for this quality and size is pretty decent/normal in SF.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on cost of a machine. Plus, McDonalds is a weak even if common example. Many companies push employees go focus on good service or at least sales (esp upselling). Computers still arent as good at that with a good chunk of customers rejecting them outright in such uses. Far as machines, depends on how cost of installation, maintenance, and licensing vs humans it replaces. Varies case by case.
McDonald's was used as an example due to their work at automating their franchises, and their comments about increasing this to full automation due to the $15 minimum wage[0]. The bigger point (and the dirty secret of globalism) is that nobody can really afford labor, especially multinationals. 0. http://www.inquisitr.com/1594675/mcdonalds-counters-minimum-...
That's a lie they tell you. McDonalds may not to some degree. I've worked with many companies that are low-margin, including food companies. The low-cost, food industry is tough enough that tradeoffs can be harsh. $15 might be too much to ask for them. But better than minimum wage, crazy scheduling (below), pushing them to skip breaks, and so on? Yeah, they can do it but don't want to. What's common in most of these are tons of highly-paid, corporate people with expenses, catered meetings, jets, 8-digit CEO's, and so on. Almost all I've ever worked for could afford all that but not labor that generates revenue. Strange, eh?
https://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/HarpersMaga...
Anyway, I like citing rebels from low-margin industries to disprove the general claim that people can't be paid well. I mean, we had an article on Hacker News recently showing all the big companies used to do it but switched to a shareholder focus. But what about companies making pennies on the dollar? Two favorites:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2013/07/24/the-wal-...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/19/reasons-love-costco...
These companies operate in a very-rough industry where margins usually range from below 1 to about 3.5% for Walmart. Most companies in it are clear people can't and shouldn't be paid almost anything unless they're management, executives, or board members. Yet, these two do the opposite with more profit as a result than most of them. Also show you can get good executives in 6-digit range instead of 8-digits. Lean, too, with Publix having a 200 to 1 worker to manager ratio without breaking a sweat. Motivated people and their supervisors, esp with financial stake in earnings, tend to manage themselves mostly.
So, even if I conceded McDonalds after seeing detailed accounting, I'd still like to take a closer look at the books and management practices of most of these other companies that say they can't afford labor. I think they probably can if a lower-margin business can. Just a hunch.