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Yeah so the way it works is each module has space for 6 toppings (unless it’s a sauce, cheese or pepperoni module) each module holds 2 sets of 3 toppings so in that case, it looks like that one dispenser had those 3 toppings in it
 
I’ve got people who still can’t figure how to do half and half toppings. So they’ll pay for whole toppings and write “Half Pepperoni, Other half just cheese” or something like that. It’s not even difficult to do half and half
 
With how much of a headache timed deliveries can be, I dont get why Domino’s seems to encourage it.
I know the industry is moving more and more towards total convenience, im not sure how to get there.
 
We had to dummify our system even more cause of the same issue. Now as soon as they click on the pizza they get asked immediately.
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I have seen those robots and they are very interesting. I’m not there yet on them but I feel like in 10 years this or something similar will be a staple pizzeria item. Have you looked at the cost of these? I had an email about one and they wanted to do it as a robot as a service at $5k per month.

As an aside how short on workers are you? We have stayed near full employment for the most part, maybe a person or so short.
 
Yes, RaaS with picnic is 3500-5k a month. From what I understand they are priced in a range depending on how many modules you need. We’ve had to give out raises to people like crazy, who only a few truly deserve it, just to keep people. We are bad with drivers at one store and inside help at the other. Hoping to automate as much as we can to save labor, increase production, and simplify
 
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We finally purchased a dough rounder last month. We’re kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner. It genuinely removes the need for one job/person out of the dough-making equation.

We have a divider on the way. If it works as advertised, we plan to make all our dough for 3 locations at one and move it around in our refrigerated van. At that point the limiting factor will be rolling the dough. We’ll set up a pair of 2-pass rollers and have 2 people doing nothing but loading dough into a hopper then rolling it into pans on the other end as the rounder kicks out dough balls.
 
Did you go with Somerset? We looked into the divider last year but that seemed like it would help get it done faster but the cleaning of the machine would’ve eliminated saved time on most normal days
 
Yes, but we are still waiting to receive the divider. Rounder is super easy cleanup: two nuts hold on top piece, pull out spiral, pull out barrel & base, throw all those parts in sink, then wipe out cabinet.
 
I have not found any automation that has any reasonable ROI. If someone comes across some, let me know. As far as dough rounders go, if it was down to just me and just one person, I might consider it, but most of the time I have at least three people in the shop and rounding the dough goes pretty fast with one cutting, one hand-rounding, and one managing the trays. Of course, when we have more people, it goes that much faster.

My approach to managing the labor shortage is two-fold. First, I am recruiting all the time. I really do spend 1-2 hours everyday trying to recruit and, even with that, I am lucky to find one person a month. While it’s a pain, it is keeping us going.

Second, we just crank our promise times up accordingly. Pre-COVID, if I told someone it would take 45 minutes before they could pickup a pizza, they would hang up. In the height of COVID, they would accept a 90 minute wait time for pickup. Now, they will accept 1 hour. With so many other places out of business or short-staffed, my neighbors have come to accept the new reality.

I have never deactivated my phones BUT, our phone does not ring in the store until the guest has heard a recording stating that they will always get quicker service if they order online. Then they go into the hold queue with everyone else. The computer savvy ones will hang up immediately and order online. The “older” folks or those are driving will wait and are happy that we pick up at all.

When answer the phone, if wait times are over 45 minutes, we’ll say “Thank you for calling. Wait times right now are X minutes, is that okay?” If that isn’t okay, they usually just hang up. If it is, they order and expectations have been set appropriately.
 
I turn off my phones all the time. I have a msg that says due to high volume, we cannot answer the phones right now. I also advertise that if you order online, you receive 13% off… When I originally post the discount, I got no takers. Now I’m up to about 10% of the orders being online with the discount
 
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Here is a list of things we have done over the last 18 months

-We changed our online ordering from Chownow to totally integrated Microworks. Online sales are way up

-We setup Text Message Alerts, now when the last item from an order gets bumped off the makeline the customer gets a text message saying their order is 5-10 minutes from being ready. It helps tremendously

-We use a label system for pizza boxes. Pizza is bumped from the makeline it triggers the pizza label to print. We used to use a marker IDK how we did that

-We have delivery driver tracking now, allowing us to time orders more efficiently

-We have a machine that took cutting fresh chicken tenders from 25mins/case down to 5mins/case

-All this technology is great but means nothing without the right team behind, we shifted our focus from hiring based on experience and skill to hiring based on attitude as the first and highest priority.

-Got rid of problem employees
 
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I would describe the dough balls as “consistently ok.” Not as tightly rolled as when I do them, but often much better than some of the employees when they’re in a hurry trying to bang them out.

We often get the dough done so fast now that we’re needing it to rise in the pans more while we delivery them to the other store so we don’t even turn the cooler on in the van.
 
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