A restaurant’s kitchen is its beating heart. It influences service speed and, perhaps more crucially, has the greatest direct impact on the passenger experience. More restaurants have made the switch from paper tickets to kitchen automation software in recent years, resulting in shorter ticket waits and more profits.

As the demand for off-premise eating and delivery grows, kitchen automation has become increasingly significant. Operators are turning to kitchen display systems to automate their kitchens. QSR Automations has compiled a list of future-proof kitchen automation elements to keep your restaurant ahead of the curve in this post.

1. Integrations

First and foremost, you’ll need a back-of-house solution that works with all of your restaurant’s gadgets. You can’t have a well-connected restaurant if the technology doesn’t communicate with each other. Software that connects the front and back of the home, as well as a variety of connectivity choices, are all part of modern kitchen automation. If you ever switch software in your restaurant, having kitchen automation software with integration partners preserves your investment.

2. Information about the kitchen

Data is critical for making a restaurant smarter, more efficient, and lucrative. Kitchen display systems are now beginning to collect data from guests at every point of their dining experience, allowing for a more tailored experience from the first encounter until long after they leave. Operators may then use this information to design marketing campaigns and pinpoint bottlenecks. Real-time data provides operators and owners with a complete picture of kitchen activities, allowing them to make quick business choices.

In kitchen automation systems, you’ll observe the following data points:

Data on Customer Experience

You’ll have access to consumer information when your kitchen display system is completely connected with your guest management system, which will help you improve the experience and generate marketing campaigns. You may look up information like visitor history, dates visited, purchasing and spending tendencies, check details, and more in a historical guest book.

Integration of FOH and BOH

Your host personnel may monitor order- and item-level status updates within the guest management system when your back of house and front of house software are integrated. Off-premise orders will also be updated in real time for host employees, reducing the need to go back and forth between the host stand and the kitchen. Front-of-house data, such as when a large group has been seated, how many people are waiting, and so on, are also available to kitchen personnel.

Data on Service Speed

As goods progress from one step to the next, a report is generated that details when the order was placed, the estimated cook time, the actual cook time, and the time from kitchen to customer.

Views of the exposition from several platforms

This is a simple method for locating bottlenecks in your business. Use this information to identify cook times that are longer than typical.

Order Status in Real-Time

You’ll be able to separate the workflow of an order by station, allowing you to identify pain areas and roadblocks. You’ll be able to fine-tune issue areas as a result, ensuring that efficiency is maintained throughout the process.

3.Management of Capacity

With the growing popularity of off-premise eating and delivery alternatives, this functionality is critical for merging the two traffic streams (in-store and off-premise). Instead of only the amount of orders, a KDS with a quoting manager will pace the orders depending on real-time activity in the restaurant. As a result, the off-premise diner gets a precise estimate time, and your kitchen isn’t overworked. When the kitchen traffic ramps up, all restaurant traffic is taken into consideration when quoting to delivery partners and consumers. This ensures that visitors receive their orders on schedule.

4. Texting using automated SMS

You should be able to send automatic SMS messages to off-premise diners, informing them to the exact status of their order, if you have a KDS with a comprehensive quotation software. For example, the Domino’s Tracker keeps consumers informed about the status of their order from the time it is prepared to when it is delivered.

Some kitchen display software also allows you to send text messages from the kitchen to servers and bussers through SMS. This feature may also be set up to deliver a “pop-up” alert that moves from one kitchen station to the next.

5. Capability to travel

A business intelligence app is available for restaurant operators from a variety of kitchen automation systems. Operators may use the app to establish alerts for when a specific statistic goes below acceptable levels. If an order waits in the delivery window for more than three minutes, for example, the operator will be alerted via the app. Users may also get a fast overview of restaurant operations, from cook times to seating efficiency.

Restaurant technology will continue to evolve as the industry does. Using kitchen automation to streamline your business relieves many of the stresses that restaurant owners face on a daily basis. Kitchen automation is a critical piece of the jigsaw that will aid in the creation of a smarter, more efficient restaurant that will keep customers pleased and generate loyalty.