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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]

#161

Post by VLM »

saalweachter wrote: post #153
noahtallen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

Anecdotally, my local McDonald's never has trouble with their milkshake machine-- it's my local Burger King that frequently does. So a franchisee-specific training problem would make a lot of sense.

My sister worked there as a kid and labor on demand had certain chaotic results.

To give an IT analogy if an IT department staffed based on corporate's seemingly random rolls of the dice it could be painful to make sure weekly backups get done weekly, for example. Especially if the only feedback was when the restore process occasionally broke down. Whereas if some dude is always at work every Friday morning at 8am he can get in the habit of being the guy who always runs the backups. Also imagine if the only way to run backups was to flip the power switch for a half hour and hope you know how to complete the backup in less than a half hour... nobody wants to be that guy who shut off the DB server even if maint is required...

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

#162

Post by h0l0cube »

wronglebowski wrote: post #40
miked85 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any insight into why the machines are broken so often then?

They aren't "broken". It's operations failures. The basic fact of 1. Keeping the machine full of the right amount of product to complete it's nightly heat cycle 2. Have someone trained to fully clean the machine every 14 days Is a burden too great for many franchisees to bear. The turnover is too high and investment in people too low to keep them operational. Nothing about them is "broken"

It seems like you didn't bother to watch the video, but used the OP synopsis as an accurate distillation of the investigation... which it isn't. McDonalds (purportedly) have to use an inferior machine. This machine is used by many other franchises, including Wendy's, but the UX has been specifically throttled in the McDonalds mandated model such that the error messages are opaque. So much so, that when a newer version was rolled out, one of the techs posted a video wondering if anyone else noticed the error messages were getting worse (and the video was promptly taken down). Thus training becomes much more difficult when error messages are in Eldritch screeches instead of plain English, like every other model.

I'm not sure if you've worked at McDonalds (you've never specifically stated in any comment) and you've never specified when. Is it possible things are different now to when (or whichever franchise) you worked?

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

#163

Post by Spooky23 »

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,…

The reporting is based on conversations with franchisees, who are a part of the equation here too.

McDonalds franchisees are always in a tug of war with the company over various issues, especially loss leader products like ice cream and the dollar menu. Thus, it mysteriously “breaks”.

In some markets, a cone is $0.29 — it’s a money loser that the franchisee doesn’t like and probably doesn’t drive traffic in many locations.

I’d look at the human element before declaring a major manufacturer of a simple product incompetent. They wouldn’t be consistently failing for their biggest customer over many years.

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

#164

Post by blagie »

Grustaf wrote: post #125
mrob wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because losing 14% of ice cream sales beats getting sued for poisoning people and losing their reputation for good food safety. If you can't trust McDonalds to be a safe choice, why would you go there at all?

Did you watch the film? The idea is that McDonalds are knowingly letting another company overcharge their franchisees, it's not about safety. Supposedly other fast food chains use the same machines without these problems.

I agree about the first part, but I'm not sure about the argument about other franchises.

The employees at most McD's are in a different class than most other franchises. This isn't universal, of course, but for the most part, McD's hires from the very bottom end. This isn't bad -- I see people with Down's, strong autism, and similar working at McDs, happily, and those folks need jobs. To do that, you want equipment which is a bit more fail-safe.

Otherwise, we'd have safety issues at McD's every week, and they're exceptionally uncommon. That's because of a robust process. Ice cream machines with more fail-safes at McD's make sense to me.

The really incriminating part of the video comes at the very end, where they locked out Kisch.

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

#165

Post by wronglebowski »

evil-olive wrote: post #63
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…

> Every two weeks the machine must be torn down and cleaned. It’s slightly complex but all well documented. Once the 14 day marker has been passed the machine is inoperable. It must be cleaned for food safety reasons. If your “cleaner” is out or you just have poor operations you’ll end up placing service calls out of confusion. This seems entirely reasonable to me. I've heard horror stories about bacteria & mold grow…

There’s no real certification. Usually you’d watch the training materials, then shadow someone once, then do it live with someone who trained watching. It’s not hard you just need to have done it a few times.

There’s no admin reset or anything like that. There is a maintenance menu and an admin menu but even in the higher level “secret” menus changing this was never an option. I’ve seen people try and short the main board with a screwdriver to get it to “reset” the date.

It’s a very intelligent machine and when it’s cleaned you need to go through the cleaning “process” in the menu. Wash, rinse, sanitize etc. it monitors the process with various sensors and it being flushed so many times. Faking it isn’t an option, I’ve seen too many people try.

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

#166

Post by monkey_monkey »

sReinwald wrote: post #160
gambiting wrote: post #104

Question - I keep hearing about this frequently as a meme on the internet, but I have never ever been to a McDonalds that didn't have a working ice cream machine(here in UK). Is this unique to US for some reason?

Same here in Germany, but I'm also not ordering a lot of ice cream at McDonalds. My guess is that the national subsidiaries (McDonalds UK/McDonalds Germany) might have different approved vendors for their equipment than the US mothership. From glancing at Taylor's website they seem to only operate in the US.

European McDonalds use a different machine manufactured by an Italian company – Carpigiani. It's apparently better designed and more reliable.

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

#167

Post by wronglebowski »

sverhagen wrote: post #47
wronglebowski wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always had access to a Taylor manual and a Taylor technician via phone at no cost. Even with machines that were far out of warranty. Troubleshooting was never an issue for me. I never worked anywhere else with a Taylor machine. Perhaps other companies have better deals or easier to use equipment. I would like to know if Wendy's and others machines operate using the same food safety standards.

> I always had access to a Taylor manual and a Taylor technician via phone at no cost. Was that technician for free? Or did your franchise owner pay for it, out of (your) sight? The claim isn't that they do a poor job with technicians, just that they are perversely incentivized to profit from it. The video also explains there was a (very limited) owner manual, while all the secrets were in the service manual. Which o…

I had access to both. We did not pay for any of it. In fact the Taylor facility in our local market offered free “training” days once a year specifically for McDonald’s employees.

McDonald’s is much more political than people think. The franchise I worked for was very well connected and well represented. It’s possible that this access was something they pushed for or is not well known.

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

#168

Post by matthewdgreen »

raverbashing wrote: post #96
noahtallen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 maintenanc…

It is very common for engineers to hypothesize (often with limited evidence) that the problem is “the users” rather than the technology and its support infrastructure. I think this can be true, but two points:

1. The high-attrition low-skill workforce at fast food restaurants is a fact of the industry. (I am not endorsing it either.) So if a solution is failing widely when faced with the reality of its users, then the system is flawed not the users.

Of course, you might argue that it’s impossible to build a system that works with this type of users, which leads to:

2. The video argues that failure rates at competing fast food restaurants are vastly lower. While I can’t verify this myself, if we assume it’s true then it’s strong evidence that the problem here is unique to McDonalds and therefore doesn’t represent some systematic impossibility.

I don’t care much about ice cream machines, but in the broader technological sense I dislike “users are the problem” arguments. The whole point of tech is to make users’ lives easier. When other people are doing that and you’re not, there is a problem.

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

#169

Post by fouc »

summary: McDonalds only allows their franchisees to use one specific machine for ice cream, from one supplier. Most of their other equipment they have more than one choice for suppliers but not for the ice cream machine. The supplier is Taylor, which supplies ice cream machines to many other restaurants which do not suffer from the same problem. The Taylor-made machine for McDonald's is deliberately designed to have a secret menu that only “authorized service personnel” are allowed to use and the main menu only throws obscure & unhelpful error messages and the Owner manual is not helpful at all. This forces franchisee owners to pay thousands of dollars a year these service people to come and “fix” the issue with the machine.

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

#170

Post by m00dy »

fouc wrote: post #169

summary: McDonalds only allows their franchisees to use one specific machine for ice cream, from one supplier. Most of their other equipment they have more than one choice for suppliers but not for the ice cream machine. The supplier is Taylor, which supplies ice cream machines to many other restaurants which do not suffer from the same problem. The Taylor-made machine for McDonald's is deliberately designed to have…

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