MOTION SYSTEM TRENDS This is a Sally salad-making machine from Chowbotics. Designed for installation to allow 24/7 access in a public space, it integrates robotic functions to let users create customizable fresh-food meals. The most sophisticated feature of Sally is its ability to accurately dispense a variety of ingredients — each with an incredibly wide range of physical properties (including weight, size, shape, and consistency) for which Sally must account. 20 patents cover proprietary technology related to its multiple stepper motors, sensors, controls, interactive touchscreen, customized software and algorithms, and smart connectivity. The internal canisters are injection molded from high-strength Eastman Tritan for food safety and to fit into a standard dishwasher.
and system suppliers such as Macron Dynamics to help these companies develop the technology … though a caveat is that the technology must be cost competitive. Endres • QC Conveyors: We will certainly see more QSR automation in Europe, though Germany is a little more conservative and doesn’t usually adopt as rapidly. Other countries in eastern Europe do adopt such systems fairly quickly. That’s actually where we started in this industry — in Europe as well as Asia. Eitel • Design World: The National Restaurant Association cites a labor shortage for quick-service chains. Where have you seen automation help address this issue? Giunta • Macron Dynamics: There’s definitely a shortage of labor in the workplace, so restaurants must often fight for whoever is left in the labor pool. Many QSRs keep business afloat by employing minimal staff at every location. Reconsider kiosks: These mean workers aren’t forced to sit behind registers all day … which in turn frees these employees to help prepare food and assist customers with seating. Automation also helps prevent the biggest source of complaint customers have — orders that aren’t correct. Again, kiosks let customers enter orders how they want … and if the order is wrong, it’s kind of on them. They’re the ones who entered the field with the data. Eitel • Design World: Most people probably aren’t aware of how much McDonald’s beverage fulfillment is automated. Giunta • Macron Dynamics: At most McDonald’s restaurants is a machine with a carousel that drops cups onto an indexer with a small conveyor to the right beverage location. The system fills the cups with ice and the correct fluid volumes. Then the person working at the drive through just needs to put a lid on the cup and hand it to the customer. Soon we’ll see similar systems for coffee drinks. Eitel • Design World: Labor unions warn that automation could eliminate jobs. If that’s not true, how can industry help assuage concerns? Give some examples of technologies complementing the efforts of employees. Giunta • Macron Dynamics: Well, consider Chic-fil-A, which publicly advertises all the time about service and quality and consistency. McDonald’s touts these values as well. Both companies aim for continual
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improvement of efficiency and consistency … especially for their most popular items such as chicken tenders and nuggets. At McDonald’s, one of the most-sold products is actually chicken nuggets. Eitel • Design World: What? I never would have guessed. Giunta • Macron Dynamics: I didn’t always know that either. But chicken nuggets and French fries are top orders … I mean, everybody gets fries. So automation makes a lot of sense for these high-volume items because machines can completely prevent cross contamination. More specifically, there’s zero risk of an employee accidentally putting a fish filet into the oil vat meant for fries. Most people won’t know this, but those vats of oil are application specific — and you don’t want to cross contaminate. Endres • QC Conveyors: Of course, automating the cooking of fries in particular is not as simple as it sounds — because you’ve got to find a way to get the fries out of the freezer and into the fryer basket in the right amount. Then you’ve got to lower the fries into the oil and get them back out. Then the fries get salted and put into some kind of container. This last step — putting fries into their container — isn’t automated yet but everything prior to that is. The process for nuggets is similar but has some additional complexity. Giunta • Macron Dynamics: Indeed. Macron Dynamics has helped develop a linear robot for the industry to execute the accurate transfer of product in and out of the fryers for chicken nuggets, breaded chicken sandwiches, fish filets, and French fries. This delivery system includes an automatic way of getting food out of the freezer, putting it into a basket, putting the basket into the oil, taking the basket out of the oil at the exact amount of time, and dumping it into either a basket or tray — to motioncontroltips.com
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