Opinion pieces on the foodservice equipment and supplies industry from leaders and laymen from all aspects of the business, including dealers, distributors, design consultants and multi-unit operators.
A new term continues to dominate the restaurant industry: Artificial Intelligence (AI). It was all the buzz during the National Restaurant Association’s show in Chicago and it continues to come up in countless conversations.
One Industrial Engineering in Foodservice technique that we use to optimize design is process mapping. Another name that you may have heard for this same analytical process is Spaghetti Diagrams. The latter comes from the fact that many processes that are not designed optimally, often look like spaghetti in a bowl, as in the before picture seen here.
Innovation is truly in the eye of the beholder. That simple notion has never been more clear in my mind, particularly while looking back at some of the many foodservice equipment-related innovations that have hit the market this year.
Since 2010, Russ Meyer, former director of housing operations and dining services at the University of Nevada, Reno, has logged thousands of miles on his bike and raised thousands of dollars for the Clark DeHaven Scholarship Trust. The trust provides merit scholarships to students at institutions that are members of the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS). The students must be committed to pursuing careers in accredited programs in the foodservice profession or related areas. Since its inception, the trust has awarded 86 students and raised a total of $346,500.
As the senior director of Hospitality Services at NC State Dining, the foodservice arm of North Carolina State University, Randy Lait oversees a $46 million budget with annual sales volume at $49 million. The dining program serves 31,000 meals per day and employs 150 full-time employees and more than 1,000 part-time employees.
Throughout researching colleges, I never focused on their foodservice programs. On tours, as I walked through the dining hall, I would observe the setup, but for me the food never affected my decision. I ended up enrolling at Butler University and orientation was the first time I realized that there were only two dining halls on campus, plus a convenience store and a Starbucks.
Earlier this year as part of my company’s 10th anniversary, I took some time to reflect on how the foodservice industry and its technology has evolved over the past decade. That served as the perfect backdrop for my visit to the 2019 National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago.