By Kristin Avery
Have you ever wondered how you receive your fast food so fast? Honestly, I’ve never given it a second thought. All I know is that I turn into a five-year-old who’s been denied a toy when my food takes longer than two minutes. The television show “How Do They Do It?” on the Discovery Channel recently helped me put this fast food efficiency into perspective and led me to do some additional research on the topic.
CNN Money provides a taste of how complex fast food drive-through technology really is. According to the article, “
Candid Camera at the Fast-Food Drive thru” on the CNN Money website, “Here's how it works: when a customer places an order at the drive-thru speaker, the order is taken by someone at a remote ‘order center.’" The order is then sent right back to the restaurant where it was received.” The article then goes on to say, “The second component of the technology is even more interesting, and somewhat controversial. It involves a camera located at the drive-thru order window that takes a picture of the customer and the car. According to Gagnon, the pictures help staff accurately match the order to the customer, thus cutting down on botched orders.” To read more details about how the drive-through systems works, please click on the link. http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/06/news/companies/wendys_cameras/
“The Long-Distance of a Fast-Food Order” from the
New York Times states that employees at that specific fast food location may not even take orders. When describing a typical fast food drive-thru transaction, the article point out how far – literally - some establishments go to provide customer service: “What made the $12.08 transaction remarkable was that the customer was not just outside Ms. Vargas's workplace here on California's central coast. She was at a McDonald's in Honolulu. And within a two-minute span Ms. Vargas had also taken orders from drive-through windows in Gulfport, Miss., and Gillette, Wyo. “
Wow! All that just to receive a number 4. Well, there’s also more than meets the eye here at
Answers Systems. More that goes into providing the most accurate data and ensuring that claims are processed in a timely fashion. There is a level of complexity that goes into creating and maintaining
trade promotion management solutions.
Answers Systems offers two contract management and
trade spending solutions for the foodservice industry. For Foodservice Manufacturers,
Answers Systems can increase contract profitability and measure
trade promotion management effectiveness with the
ContractPro® solution.
ContractPro provides foodservice professionals with a high tech, online solution that allows users to input, approve, and track the performance of their distributor and bid/ chain operator agreements.
For Multi-Unit Operators,
Answers Systems can maximize value of their existing supplier programs, identify opportunities for new rebate programs and perform price verification with the
ValuTrak™ solution.
Answers Systems has a whole support team that works day in and day out to provide the most easy-to-use, easy- adopt
trade spending management solutions. Just in the accounting department alone, 13,000 checks are printed and distributed a month. Settlement has the constant challenge of processing thousands of claims to meet required turnaround times.
The
Answers Systems team also includes Six Sigma green belts with expertise in Lean process improvement methodologies. Our Project Management team, Business Analysts with Six Sigma certifications and Quality Assurance team are all part of the group that contributes to; requirements collection, project execution and quality product/process delivery. All these processes are monitored and implemented within a consistent and centralized Project Management Office team. We are SAS 70, Type II Certified and we are Sarbanes Oxley Compliant
Wow! All of that just to ensure your business receives the best
trade promotion management. It just goes to show you that not everything is what it seems. If you dig a little further, you might find that there’s more than meets the eye.
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