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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]

#211

Post by bombcar »

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…

McDonald's is designed to run with the simplest possible steps. I suspect that "clean nightly" is a different process for MCD vs Wendy's, and that the MCDs is designed to "automate" more of whatever it does - and if it fails it locks you out.

In other words Wendy's and In-N-Out have more details procedures that the employees have to do (and "wash the machine" may include dumping all extra product, cleaning the insides and the dispensers) whereas the McDonald's "wash the machine" may be just clean the dispensers and load with product and let the machine do it's thing (and only every 14 days do a full clean).

But since the simpler machines trust the humans they can be made to run even if steps were missed.

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

#212

Post by slantyyz »

1123581321 wrote: post #183
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…

Independent Taylor distributors come out and get the service revenue, not Taylor corporate. Taylor corporate makes money from the parts that the distributors use, but new parts aren't required to work with the software. Taylor isn't internally structured to incentivize driving distributor revenue. Taylor's McDonald's-only machines are different due to special requirements that come from corporate which ostensibly com…

In the Wired article, the Kytch founder alleges that Taylor takes a cut of the distributor's profit from the repairs:

The secret menu reveals a business model that goes beyond a right-to-repair issue, O’Sullivan argues. It represents, as he describes it, nothing short of a milkshake shakedown: Sell franchisees a complicated and fragile machine. Prevent them from figuring out why it constantly breaks. Take a cut of the distributors’ profit from the repairs. [1]

1: https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-...

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

#213

Post by slantyyz »

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…

According to the related Wired article, this isn't true:

"(McDonald’s agreement with franchisees also allows them to use an actual Italian machine, sold by Bologna-based Carpigiani, that McD Truth describes as much better designed. But given that its replacement parts can take a week to arrive from Italy, far fewer restaurants buy it.)" [1]

https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-...

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

#215

Post by [deleted] »

ChrisRR wrote: post #122
Grustaf wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question is why McDonalds would go along with this. Presumably they have the leverage, why would they be incentivised to let even a cent of franchisee money going to another company if they can help it? They want their franchisees to have as much money as possible, that's what benefits them.

Mcdonalds don't make their money from food, they make it from real estate. A broken ice cream machine meme probably does next to nothing to their revenue.

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by fastball »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #111
fastball wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

music videos must be fun, then

Can't remember the last time I watched a music video!

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

#217

Post by sct202 »

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,…

Wendy's has 2 soft serves (vanilla and chocolate). McDonalds has like 8 ice cream/shake drinks, so it shouldn't be a surprise that McDonalds would have a more expensive and complicated machine to get 4x as many varieties.

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

#218

Post by cowpig »

maximus2001 wrote: post #55

Louis Rossmann's YouTube video "Let's talk about ice cream and why it matters" 10 minutes that nails it https://youtu.be/tl34nW9c4wo

ok this is better thanks (a quicker, rantier version that touches on related right-to-repair issues)

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

#219

Post by m00dy »

fouc wrote: post #187
m00dy wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this automated ?

Sorry, is what automated? The machine doesn't call for a service technician automatically if that's what you meant.

I meant your summary. Did you pull the transcript from the video and run through text summarisation model ?

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

#220

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj »

wronglebowski wrote: post #36
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…

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 machine is made for min wage employees and 14% of them are constantly broken, the machine is a failure
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