Like most business, I'm sure, payroll expenses as probably the highest expense. The key (to any business) is keeping productivity high and labor cost low (at least here in the US).
Can someone design a total automated fastfood restaurant (let's say selling burgers and fries) where it's totally automated using robotics or assembly line machines (Krispy Kreme had the right idea) and kiosks can handle the POS.
This would keep labor cost to, I guess, 1-2 people making sure Quality is controlled and machines are running right.
Just press a button with your desired outcome (cheese or no cheese, etc. etc) and whella! You got burger in a few minutes without human intervention.
I understand that setup cost may be high but ROI can be fast due to savings of labor cost.
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sounds really cool to me. Of course, we still need jobs for the high school kids...
Some job displacement issues that worry me. If you can guarantee that the people that would've been cooking those burgers will now be building the machines, I'd be less worried. Also, supervising such a machine would definitely be more strenuous than actually doing the cooking.
I don't like the general idea that robots will eventually be doing all of our menial jobs. Where would all of the displaced workers go?
Well it sounds quite funny...bcoz then attention will be diverted to the smooth running of machines and not to the customer front.
3 years ago I proposed to VC's a competitor to Starbucks which would be employee-free -- a large coffee making kinetic sculpture robot in a strip mall store. Swipe your membership card and it will make any kind of coffee or capuchino while you and children watch it grind beans, fountain the water, etc. membership includes wifi, and the store is monitored over wifi, with contractors auto-called for refills and daily janitoring.
$20m million to develop the robot sculpture, which could then be replicated over and over again into every strip mall.
The head VC liked the tattoo'ed and pierced employees making his coffee!
In the meanwhile, the founder of Chuck E. Cheese started a semi-automated restaurant with video-game/cash-register tables. Starbucks is installing a $10,000 coffee robot.