2018 Kitchen Automation & Table Management Trends

2018 will be an exciting year for the restaurant industry, and guest experiences and user convenience will drive the majority of the innovation. With Off-premise dining and delivery rapidly becoming the most popular way to dine, restaurant owners must implement new strategies to manage the traffic and keep their kitchen in smooth working order. Read up on our list of Kitchen Automation and Table Management Trends happening in the coming year, and how you can prepare for them!

Capacity Management

With an increased demand for off-premise dining and delivery options, restaurants must accommodate those users via online ordering portals. In turn, blending the dual streams of orders (those from guests in-store and those from online) becomes crucial. An automated solution, like a KDS, will help. ConnectSmart® Kitchen’s newest update contains a quoting manager and an order pacer which “throttles” online orders to keep everything on track. Essentially, CSK can measure the real-time activity in the kitchen and will predicate a pickup quote based on this data. When the kitchen is busy, the quote extends, and vice versa. Those ordering from off-site aren’t negatively affected, they merely receive an accurate time to get their food. Those in-store don’t find their order crowded out by online orders.  For more in-depth discussion check our article on order throttling.

Automated SMS Texting

With orders coming into your restaurant from such disparate sources, arises a need for constant communication, whether it’s with customers or your staff. CSK’s robust quoting software allows it to send automated SMS texts to off-premise diners, alerting them the exact stage of their order. You can even customize the verbiage for branding or personal touches, a touch of convenience and personality modern diners have come to expect.   With these automated messages, you’re assured customers stay in the loop at all stages of the order. Furthermore, restaurant operators can use this SMS capability to send texts from the kitchen to servers and bussers as well, or configure them automatically as “pop-up” alerts that bump from one kitchen station to another.

Data Integration

A back of house solution that integrates with all the devices in your set-up, taking these multiple points of data, and making them palatable to you, is critical. 2018 software updates to QSR products will allow its KDS to integrate directly with its restaurant reservation system to receive those front-of-house metrics directly on the kitchen dashboard. This integration fosters a fully connected kitchen, one powered by smart data, in which all kitchen processes informed one another. Furthermore, CSK integrates with over 65 different point-of-sale (POS) devices, a protected investment, ensuring your restaurant stays fully connected even if you change other devices.

Mobile Capability

If your customers are using the internet to order from you, there’s a really good chance they’re doing it from the pocket-sized convenience of a mobile device (as much as 56% of all web traffic!). The innovation spreads to restaurant owners, with a 2018 Enterprise Portal update which will feature a polished iOS and Android app for CSK users. With the app, operators can configure alerts for their phone when a particular metric (example: when an order stays in the delivery window for more than two minutes) slides out of the acceptable parameters. Through the app, users can gain a quick window into their restaurant, from cook times to seating economy, from anywhere.   2018 will stand as a year predicated on consumer choices and convenience. Having automated solutions in place, like our best in a class kitchen display system, and a knowledge of dining developments you’ll capitalize on these trends, keep customers happy and your restaurant processes smooth. Subscribe to the blog for more interesting restaurant content!

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About the Author

Dylan Chadwick is a Content Marketing Specialist at QSR Automations. He graduated from Brigham Young University with an English degree and journalism focus and loves to write about technology. When left to his own devices, he enjoys loud music, adorable dogs and documentaries about the aforementioned.