The Future Is Here: How Fourth’s Platform Enables Dynamic Production in QSRs

In recent years, the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry has been rapidly evolving, with technology driving major changes in the way food is prepared, served, and consumed. One of the most exciting and innovative trends in this space is dynamic production, a concept that promises to transform the way QSRs operate and serve their customers.

Dynamic production involves using technology to optimize and automate the production process, which allows restaurants and other food-service providers to serve their customers  fresh meals at a speed that ensures both efficiency and high quality.

One of the key benefits of dynamic production is its ability to reduce waste and optimize inventory management. Dynamic production allows QSRs to monitor demand in real-time and make sure that ingredients are available when needed so there is reduced waste and lower costs. Using technology to prepare food quickly and accurately can also enhance the customer experience by reducing wait times while still delivering high-quality food.

To learn more about the future of dynamic production in QSR, we spoke to Paul Tregoning, General Manager of Fourth APAC, a leading provider of hospitality management solutions. 

QSR Media:  Why dynamic production in QSRs? 

Production planning is one of the essential functions in QSR operations. It ensures that restaurants can meet customers with the highest quality/freshest product, optimal to their brand standard, and simplifies the cook’s job by providing timely and accurate information on what needs to be produced to deliver the best quality product. Checking forecast and inventory stocks, arranging ingredients, and ensuring the food is cooked correctly are just a few of the challenges production planning solves.

Dynamic production leverages data to update production schedules in real-time to achieve new levels of efficiencies and cost savings while ensuring consistency of product quality. 

What recent trends have you seen in dynamic production in QSRs?

QSRs continue to evolve, and Dynamic Production is key in ensuring that they are providing quick service but also fresh quality products to the consumer. The Production tool allows a QSR to ensure they have a product for the projected customer and assists with limiting the waste and lowering the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). Global trends are showing that with the daily cost of living going up, people are focusing on good quality food at a reasonable price which drives more sales for QSRs initially, but if the quality is not maintained, that demand will move to another quick service provider. Dynamic Production helps QSR make this a reality. 

Are there any specific challenges that come with implementing dynamic production in a QSR setting?

One of the challenges we hear from our customers rolling out of dynamic production is finding efficient hardware including touchscreen devices to manage the solution. In addition, restaurants and operations are not spending enough time understanding requirements for mounting devices to ensure convenience for operations, and review of best practices to facilitate unobstructed access to these devices. 

The Point-of-sale needs to integrate with Fourths solutions to ensure the required data is provided in near-real-time to achieve the functionality required by Dynamic Production

A BOH (back of house) Tool can forecast but it is key that the real-life data flows through to keep the Dynamic Production at its peak. 

How is Fourth responding to these challenges? Do you think that there is a danger of restaurants becoming too reliant on dynamic production?

As a software vendor, we do not dictate any specific hardware, therefore we engineered dynamic production to be hardware agnostic, where it would work on any touchscreen device with adequate screen size and a modern web browser. We are also working on simplifying the use of the system, for example, the ability to log into the system using a pin code, or support of multiple devices in the cooking area reflecting ingredients associated with different stations, such as proteins or sides.

Talk a little more about Fourth’s solution and its benefits?

Fourth’s Dynamic Production planning software, part of MacromatiX, improves operational efficiency and cost control while also helping restaurants ensure they always serve their customers with the freshest ingredients. This is done by tracking optimum fresh time and hold time with dynamic in-store production guidance throughout the day while the system can warn staff when the ingredients no longer meet quality standards. 

It also has production recommendations based on Fourth’s advanced forecasting engine, intelligent exception-based alerting, and over 25 production planning data points. This means you get optimised ordering, less waste, more sanitary food storage conditions, and fresher ingredients.

How do you think the industry will change over the next few years as more restaurants adopt dynamic production methods?

With the use of data and the development of technology, QSRs will have a better forecast to match customer demands through production planning. Practical, cost and time-efficient dispatch of food results in reduced waste and more systematic operational processes. Restaurants can also develop business strategies while providing a better dining experience for their customers. 

As technology continues to evolve, it's likely that dynamic production will become even more sophisticated, allowing QSRs to further optimize their operations and deliver even better results for their customers. For QSR operators looking to stay ahead of the game, embracing dynamic production is a must. To get more details about Fourth’s Dynamic Production planning software, visit https://www.fourth.com/