Question

In: Finance

Short of Workers, Fast-Food Restaurants Turn to Robots Employment opportunity in the hospitality market has never...

Short of Workers, Fast-Food Restaurants Turn to Robots

Employment opportunity in the hospitality market has never been higher. More restaurants are making efforts to deliver food and stay open later, therefore are in need of more employees. As a result, approximately 850,000 jobs in the hospitality industry are unfilled. Restaurant owners are turning to new technology to try and replace workers. For owners, it is expensive to constantly train and replace workers. In the food business, there is significant uncertainty with length of employment. Many people will take a job temporarily while they search for something with better pay. Robots would be able to eliminate this risk, but only for certain automated processes. The social aspect of having a human take your order is very important to the customer base.

1.) Other than upfront cost, what are some of the down sides associated with replacing humans with robots?

2.) What are good ways to mitigate risk when testing new technology in an unproven market?

3.) Overall, do you think the benefits outweigh the risk?

Solutions

Expert Solution

Downsides associated with replacing humans with robots
1. Unemployment rate will increase because of the substitution of humans by robots.
2. Maintenance of robots might require experts whose salary or fees might be lot higher.
3. In case of break down in robots business might suffer and service to customers will be poor.
4. Experimentation and food with unique taste might not be created as robots are programmed for certain fixed activity and are rarely programmed for innovation.
5. Sense of smell and taste is difficult to incorporate in robots, hence taste might suffer.

What are good ways to mitigate risk when testing new technology in an unproven market
1.The test should be done in a small scale so as to prevent higher expenses
2.Customer feedback should be taken will performing the test to know the shortcomings in the technology and how can it be improved.
3. Computer simulation in place of actual models are even better as it reduces lot of expense can test it to a fair degree.

No, I don’t think the benefits outweigh the risk because service industry needs a human touch.

Best of Luck. God Bless


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