I'm doing active work for a couple of companies that sell equipment to McD's and other fast foot joints. But we'll focus on McD's for the sake of this reply.
McDonald's is heavily invested in new technologies, but they are very conservative about deployment. If something like this did appeal to them, it would take a lot of field trials and monitoring before it went out. Remember that the corporation can specify certain equipment to produce their products, but in franchised stores those store owners need to do the actual purchase and maintenance of the equipment. They need buyin as well.
McDonald's also second-sources everything. If they say "this is the shake machine we recommend", there will be two competing companies making that type of machine. This is good business for a number of reasons. So something like this mega robot would never make it to the field without a duplicate style of machine being made by someone else.
As far as this robot goes, it's just too complex and too critical to base an entire restaurant upon. If it goes down, your entire operation is stalled for the duration of the repair. Doesn't matter if a technician is seated on a stool next to it 24 hours a day, you still can't guarantee when it will be running again. This type of technology just won't be able to compete with semi-skilled labor and simpler cooking devices for the mid to long-term.
McDonald's is heavily invested in new technologies, but they are very conservative about deployment. If something like this did appeal to them, it would take a lot of field trials and monitoring before it went out. Remember that the corporation can specify certain equipment to produce their products, but in franchised stores those store owners need to do the actual purchase and maintenance of the equipment. They need buyin as well.
McDonald's also second-sources everything. If they say "this is the shake machine we recommend", there will be two competing companies making that type of machine. This is good business for a number of reasons. So something like this mega robot would never make it to the field without a duplicate style of machine being made by someone else.
As far as this robot goes, it's just too complex and too critical to base an entire restaurant upon. If it goes down, your entire operation is stalled for the duration of the repair. Doesn't matter if a technician is seated on a stool next to it 24 hours a day, you still can't guarantee when it will be running again. This type of technology just won't be able to compete with semi-skilled labor and simpler cooking devices for the mid to long-term.