process design – OM in the News

Fully-Autonomous Restaurant in San Francisco

Mezli, which just opened its first restaurant in August 2022, utilizes technology to bring healthy Mediterranean grain bowls to the market.

The initial restaurant is fully-autonomous and housed in a 20-foot shipping container. Their Mediterranean bowls are priced to be affordable, with the flagship bowls starting at $6.99. A Michelin-starred chef assisted with the creation of their menu.

The process begins each day at Mezli’s central kitchen with food preparation. Food is then delivered to the restaurant. Robots at the restaurant receive customer […]

By Ross L. Fink, Ph.D.|2022-09-25T23:56:43+00:00September 27, 2022|Tags: apps, automation, location, process design, processes, robotics, robots, technology|

Subway’s New Menu

Since Subway came into existence 57 years ago, customers have been able to build their own sandwich.

However, the company recently introduced a new product line, its Subway Series Sandwiches. Customers can choose to still build their own sandwich, or order one of the twelve Subway Series Sandwiches by number or name.

The twelve new sandwiches were selected from hundreds of options. Chef-developed, focusing on recently introduced ingredients, the Subway Series choices were based on digital order data.

This menu change follows last […]

By Ross L. Fink, Ph.D.|2022-07-22T20:58:30+00:00July 27, 2022|Tags: efficiency, inventory management, limited menus, process design, product design, quick serve restaurants, service, service blueprint|

Agility Robotics Is Developing a Bipedal Robot for Warehouses

Agility Robotics is focusing on developing a bipedal ‘Digit’ robot that can unpack trucks and move boxes around warehouses.

Additional funding is secured to expand operations to three locations, namely Oregon, Bay Area, and Pittsburg, to deliver its robots to customers including Amazon and Ford.

Video Spotlight:

The Future of Robotics (Apr 22, 2022, Agility Robotics)

This post is based on the TechCrunch article, As it brings its bipedal robots to market, Agility announces a […]

By Anita Lee-Post, Ph.D.|2022-06-06T07:07:25+00:00June 16, 2022|Tags: innovation, last mile delivery, process design, robotics, robots, technology, warehouse, warehousing|

Santa Barbara Chick-fil-A Too Successful?

Santa Barbara’s Chick-fil-A restaurant has been so successful that cars back up onto the road in front of the restaurant for about 90 minutes a day, and up to 155 minutes a day on Saturdays.

The backups have become such a problem that the City is in process of declaring this Chick-fil-A a public nuisance.

Santa Barbara has an ordinance that bans the construction of new drive-thru restaurants, but this Chick-fil-A location was previously a Burger King restaurant with a drive-thru, and […]

By Ross L. Fink, Ph.D.|2022-05-17T06:06:37+00:00May 18, 2022|Tags: capacity, facility location, process design, queuing theory, regulations, waiting lines|