Innovation (Fast Food Chain)

Eating is a hobby which Filipinos mostly enjoy. It serves as a bonding which unites people like a family, friends, couple and even important meetings with anyone. It’s important that the foundation of this bond must be cosy, comfy for the customers to have a great experience that apparently a fast food chain will benefit from it. The key of having this benefit is how the operation is going on as well as the facilities itself. People, nowadays wants to be in a modern place and mostly attracts on what’s new and how it will give them the satisfaction they want. Among the hundreds of fast food chains in Davao, I visit the three fast food chains which I observed for few days to seek what could be improved. These places include McDonalds, Greenwich, and Mister Donut.  

               

There are many branches of McDonald’s fast food chain in Davao. The one I visited is in the Bajada, near in Victoria Plaza. To the fact that it’s not so far away from the schools, it’s one of the mostly visited by the customers. As it opens, bunches of customer are in and most of the scene that I have witnessed is the standing in line into the cashier which sometimes customers are tired with it especially to the impatient people. You must also make sure that you will have your seats first before you will drop your jaw finding out that you will no place to eat. You must have a friend to reserve a seat for you before standing on the line and make some orders. To make it easy to the side of the customers as well as the part of the fast food chain, they can apply the touch of the moderns’ technology which is the CPE Order System. It’s a kind of table which contains the food menu. Each table has a wide screen which has the details of the foods that are available. All you have to do as you enter the place is just to seat and relax; tap the menu on the screen and choose the food you crave for. Less effort, a better life isn’t it? As the crew receive your orders from their database, you’ll just have to wait and eat what you had ordered as it will serve right away. About the payment of the orders, the side of the table has its own swipe machine for the credit cards. For the cash, there will be a machine also in the side of the table that you’ll just insert your money like what you did in a vending machine and apparently will receive a change if you have it. Having the questions of what’s the whole process of it? Simply follow the CPE which stands for Choose, Pay, and Eat and that’s it! Ideally, this concept provides a better set up for the customers from standing there in the line that will took some minutes as well as the energy to line up in the cashier. It will also expose the people and will let them embrace the modernization of life which will help us live easier.

               

Another place that I have visited is the Greenwich spotted in Victoria Plaza. This fast food chain also is in demand since they serve a delicious food that makes you have another round. There are times as I pass to that store, many customers are there to have their meals and I also seen the same scenario as the McDonald’s has. Still, standing-in-line scenario and waiting for the food which takes a couple or more minutes is present. It cannot be avoided that some customers will end up to disgust because of what I’ve stated scenario like. One of what I’ve observed and also experienced is waiting to the table to be clean up by some crews. There are couple of times that I’ve waited more than ten minutes or even the food we’ve ordered are just arrived before the table was clean up. For me, it’s not a really big deal in this scenario but for some people, it’s annoying especially if you’re really hungry and want to eat as soon as the food is on your table. To address this, the answer is on the table itself. Let’s say that the table will become a transformer like Megatron, Bumble Bee or Optimus Prime. The concept is that the table will be the cleaner itself and this concept is the GC-Table⁺. As the previous customers are done with their meal, then the table will flip itself from the dirty table into a clean table. Each table has a small screen like a phone which is for the commands of cleaning the table itself. Table are programmed and the crew will tap the clean button on the screen, then cleaning of the table will happen. Plates will be also replaced with clean plates as well as the other utensils that a table usually has. Aside from the customers will not be waited just to clean the mess on the table, less effort will be guarantee for the part of the crew in the fast food chain.

The last fast food chain I visited is the Mister Donut found in Victoria Plaza. The usual scenario in having your meal there is getting a tong with a tray and will pick any donuts you drooled for and will just go to the line to pay what you had ordered. Upon observing the operation in the stated fast food chain, there are many ‘What ifs’ in my mind and it could possibly happen since I also experienced that. The common scenario that usually happened is while choosing and upon picking the donut you want to order. There are tendency that other customers may accidentally touch others’ tray that will cause the clashing of trays. There are many accidents that may possibly happen since the area where customers will do the picking up of donut is not enough. To avoid these accidents, this fast food chain may approach the today’s technology to solve it and it can be done through applying this innovation, M-Donut Machine. Instead people will get their tongs and trays, standing in the donut area and making a line to the cashier, why not reserve their energies and just take their seat? Each of the table has its own vending machine where it was attach in the wall since all the tables are stick to the wall. The machine contains any kind of donut, and instead of making a line in ordering what the customers want, they will just swipe their credit cards or insert their money in the machine. This concept is a helpful one for the both sides of customers and the fast food chain since accidents within the customers will be avoided.