Recently, a new concept restaurant in Los Gatos, California, USA has made waves in the dining industry. With the help of ABB Robotics' IRB 360 FlexPicker and YuMi's dual-arm cobot, the restaurant was able to deliver a burger in an astonishing 27 seconds.
1. Technical decoding: FML of the robot "Burger Division"
The IRB 360 FlexPicker robot is synonymous with speed and precision. It can complete a pick-up action in 0.5 seconds with a positioning accuracy of 0.02 mm. The two-arm design of the YuMi dual-arm cobot mimics the human arm, and its six-axis joints give it 360-degree all-round flexible movement ability, which can easily complete delicate operations such as putting onion slices and squeezing sauce. When the order is received, the robot places the freshly baked hamburger patties in the hamburger and places them in a conveyor tray marked with a QR code. As the pallet moves on the conveyor belt, the IRB 360 FlexPicker robot selects the toppings in a high-speed and hygienic manner based on the data in the QR code, ensuring that the toppings of each burger are placed exactly in the right place. The YuMi cobot plays a key role in the assembly process in Hamburg, with its two-arm design mimicking the operation of a human arm, and can flexibly and harmoniously cooperate with other robots and equipment to complete the final assembly of Hamburg. ABB's robot controller is one of the core hubs of the entire system, and it can seamlessly interface with non-robotic systems to achieve real-time tracking of ingredient inventory, which means that restaurants can accurately grasp the usage and remaining quantity of ingredients such as onions, tomatoes, lettuce and sauces, so as to better plan and control costs, and avoid food waste and overstocking.
Pictured: The robot "Burger Master" completes a burger in 27 seconds
2. Industry chage: the "efficiency tsunami" of fast-food rivers and lakes
Efficiency and cost: Reshaping the business landscape: Traditional fast-food restaurants often take tens of seconds or even minutes to make burgers, but robots only need 27 seconds to complete this process, which greatly improves production efficiency. During peak hours, this efficient production method can meet customer demand faster, reduce customer wait times, and improve customer satisfaction. From a cost point of view, although the introduction of the robot system requires a certain amount of capital investment in the early stage, from the perspective of long-term operation, it reduces labor costs and food loss costs, which helps to improve the profit margin of the restaurant. It takes about 3 minutes to make a single burger in McDonald's traditional stores, and the labor cost accounts for 25%. With a capacity of 800 hamburgers per hour, the robot's labor costs have plummeted by 60%, and the robot continues to output steadily during the peak business season, eliminating the need for additional manpower support, eliminating the cumbersome process of temporary worker recruitment and training.
Shifting work environments and employee roles: Marc Segura, head of robotics at ABB, mentioned that 89% of managers and 73% of employees in the hospitality industry are willing to embrace robotics to automate tasks at work. When robots take over repetitive and time-consuming tasks, employees can be freed from tedious cooking operations and focus more on interacting with customers, providing personalized service, and maintaining the restaurant environment, creating a more memorable dining experience for customers, while also making foodservice work more engaging and sustainable. Taking a chain burger restaurant in California as an example, after the robot took over the production of burgers, employees had more time to patrol the dine-in area, clean the table and add seasonings in time according to the customer's dining progress, customer satisfaction soared from 82% last year to 93% this year, and the turnover rate increased by 30%.
3. Future Territory: The "Sea of Stars" and "Thorny Road" of the Robot Restaurant
Technical Challenge: Reliability & Food Quality Assurance: The stable operation of the robotic system is the key to keeping the restaurant running. Even though the current technology is quite advanced, there may still be problems such as technical glitches, software vulnerabilities, etc. If a bot fails, it can lead to disruption to restaurant operations, impacting the customer experience and restaurant reputation. Restaurants need to establish a sound maintenance and emergency response mechanism to ensure the reliability and stability of the robot system. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in the past three years, robotic systems in the food and beverage industry have been down for an average of 3.2 hours per time, and restaurants have lost an average of $1,500 per hour during the breakdown period. At the same time, whether the robot can fully meet food safety standards in the process of food processing, how to avoid cross-contamination and other issues, etc., need to be strictly supervised and regulated. Restaurants need to strengthen the monitoring and management of robot operation processes to ensure the quality and safety of food. According to the FDA's sampling data on catering robots, about 15% of robot restaurants have food safety hazards such as substandard food storage temperatures and loopholes in cleaning procedures.
Social Reflection: Consumer Experience and Employment Structure Adjustment: The popularization of hamburger-making robots has made the fast-food industry move towards standardization and assembly-line. However, food should carry cultural temperature and craftsmanship, and when the robot accurately picks up each piece of lettuce, it also takes away the "human touch". At a robot restaurant in New York, the comment "The burger is perfect, but the smoke is missing" is common on the customer message board. According to the World Restaurant Association's 2024 survey, 65% of consumers think that robot restaurant food is "cold" and "soulless".。 From the perspective of employment, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that in the next five years, the basic jobs in the fast-food industry will be reduced by 18% due to automation, and entry-level chefs and side dish workers will face unemployment, intensifying competition in the low-end labor market. Community organizations are worried that this will have an impact on the employment ecology of low-skilled groups and increase the burden of social welfare.
The robot restaurant in California, USA, is the clarion call for the fast-food industry to move towards intelligence. It uses the 27-second burger as a starting point to quietly reshape the rules of the industry. But when technology is soaring, we need to think more rationally. How to protect the emotional value of food in the business logic of efficiency first? How to make technology dividends universal, rather than becoming a trigger for employment pains? These questions will determine whether the robot restaurant is a beacon that illuminates the future of catering, or a fleeting technology bubble.
