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Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

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Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#91

Post by noisy_boy »

adventured wrote: post #60
noisy_boy wrote: post #57

Some questions that I felt were not answered: 1. The video shows Taylor docs that have logo of Wendy's and other outlets that use their machines. So why those outlets are not facing the same issues? Do they use the same 602 model? Are the software versions same there i.e. same cryptic error codes? Any other differences compared to McDonalds? 2. One of Wendy's employees says that they wash the machine every night. Are…

> The video shows Taylor docs that have logo of Wendy's and other outlets that use their machines. So why those outlets are not facing the same issues? The video mentions that McDonald's was/is locked into a specific machine from Taylor (which all franchisees had to buy), whereas one imagines that the other chains like In-N-Out Burger are entirely free to purchase a different machine from Taylor that doesn't have so…

> It seems like McDonald's locked onto one machine for a very long period of time. Other fastfood chains may have moved on from that machine after they noticed problems with it (or otherwise passed on it). It was confusing that the video repeatedly mentions other chains don't have the problem despite supposedly using the same machine (but is it actually the same machine, or is it merely a similar machine).

Indeed - considering how much effort they spent on the details, they could have tried to obtain what the rival outlets were doing different considering they also use the same manufacturer and don't have same issues E.g. the model details on rival outlets to see if this issue was not affecting other Taylor models.

>> One of Wendy's employees says that they wash the machine every night. Are McDonald's not doing this?

> McDonald's is doing that as well and that's where the machines are commonly failing. The employees come in the next morning after running the clean cycle overnight and find that it failed. So they have to go through a four hour process from there forward and it might fail again before that is properly completed, and so the cycle resets.

Again, this is the same point - if both outlets are doing the washing, then why is it not affecting Wendy's? Difference in model or process of washing is not same or Wendy's have added additional instructions to deal with such issues e.g. not overfill the mixture etc?

Basically, the missing comparison is an obvious omission from, what is otherwise, a great video.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#92

Post by 02020202 »

tl;dr i read about this some time ago and essentially is just boiled down to the operators not letting the machines get into maintenance mode which it often needs to do...i think even daily. i think defrosting takes place as well so obviously this takes way too long to be out of service so they just ignore it and keep using it until sit breaks or it lock itself for maintenance.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#93

Post by emsy »

smcl wrote: post #76

Is this "the ice cream machine is always broken" meme has always puzzled me. I don't go often to mcdonalds but with my ex-gf we would stop by if we're on a trip somewhere and she'd usually get an ice cream. I don't think we ever encountered the ice cream machine being out of service. Is it more of an issue in the US or did we just have extremely good luck?

German here, I encountered a broken ice machine maybe once but it was actually broken, not out for maintenance or something.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#94

Post by bmn__ »

fastball wrote: post #56
canada_dry wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time is too precious to waste Sure. Which is why my default youtube playback speed is 1.5X.

Mine has just kept getting faster and faster, thanks to this Chrome extension[1]. Right now I average 2.5x speed for most videos, and 2.2x for people that talk fast. [1] https://github.com/igrigorik/videospeed

Alternatives:

Firefox, YT only: https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube The improved playback speed ranges from 25% to 400% (also 800% but without audio) in adjustable increments.

For offline videos, VLC also is capable of changing playback speed.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#95

Post by imtringued »

ianai wrote: post #14
nickik wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they have a service contract so the cost of so many errors burns this 'Taylor' company?

There’s no fixing operator error.

If you build machines that operators keep breaking then your machine is crap and you deserve to go out of business.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#96

Post by raverbashing »

noahtallen wrote: post #42
wronglebowski wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who worked in stores for years, this isn’t entirely accurate. The machine isn’t just being an asshole to drive up service calls. The machines are filled with a dairy product which makes the “ice cream”. This is boiled nightly to keep the mixture free of bacteria. If the nightly heat cycle fails to complete for one of a dozen reasons the machine locks out. Those unaware of the process usually end up calling…

> If the nightly heat cycle fails to complete for one of a dozen reasons the machine locks out. Those unaware of the process usually end up calling for service even if it’s a operations error(not enough product to boil successfully) This example is covered in the video. ;) The thing is, at least according to the reporting, even these operations errors are not clearly defined by the messages given by the machine. So,…

> It’s part of the problem because Taylor is incentivized to keep people calling in technicians, which means they deliberately update the machines with error codes even more difficult to understand. (Examples covered in the video too)

I do believe this happens but I'm also "skeptical" of the ability of a high attrition place with underqualified workers working under pressure to get themselves up to date in maintenance practices and manuals.

Edit: and yes, the franchisees are the ones who get the short stick. Franchises are thorny and usually not in the favour of the franchisee.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#98

Post by dandare »

boatsie wrote: post #3

Tldw: the machine throws obscure error codes (too viscous, failure to heat to proper temps, etc) and can “lock out” the operator, who has to then call an authorized service technician that bills hundreds of dollars for repair. Any attempt to self repair or hire someone else will void the warranty and is disallowed by McDonald’s corporate. The ice cream maker company, Taylor, reports 25% of their revenue is service an…

Thank you. That video was pain to watch, I hate this low-information-density bs.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#99

Post by imtringued »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #41
valuearb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is dying from repairing a milk shake machine. McDonalds is concerned about poorly mixed shakes hurting their brand, which they regard as nearly as bad.

No one is dying from actually repairing a machine. However, the soft-serve mix is very conducive to bacterial growth. People messing with the sterilization or the self-checks for sterilization could easily result in bacterial food borne illness which can be deadly.

>People messing with the sterilization or the self-checks for sterilization could easily result in bacterial food borne illness which can be deadly.

Yes, it's deadly, this is exactly the reason why we should make sure that McDonalds staff can properly operate their icecream machines by making the machine as easy to use as possible. If you have untrained staff that keep running the machine out of specs because the machine is cryptic and user hostile to them then operator errors could slip past the machine self checks because machines aren't perfectly reliable.

By instructing McDonalds franchises how to properly operate their machines and by updating the UI of the machines to properly warn of dangerous operating conditions the franchises can achieve greater safety for McDonalds customers.

As it is right now, McDonalds is actively endangering its customers with these machines.

Re: Investigating why McDonald's ice cream machines are often broken [video]

#100

Post by bmn__ »

Fezzik wrote: post #59

This seems crazy... I worked at Dairy Queen for 4 (5?) years through high school and beyond, often 6 days a week, and our soft-serve machine never once broke. This was between 97 - 2001+, so 20 years ago soft-serve machines were a solved problem. It seems insane that McDs franchisors would tolerate this sort of nonsense.

> It seems insane that McDs franchisors would tolerate this

Their hands are bound. The situation arises from the contract whose terms are dictated by McD HQ. The relationship is entirely asymmetric.

The only working remedy in form of the Kytch add-on got nuked from orbit.

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