Nov/Dec 2005

McDonald's has streamlined its restaurant inspection process by implementing a mobile data solution to automate the data-gathering and recording

By implementing a mobile solution, the UK operation of McDonald's, the leading worldwide foodservice retailer, says it has shaved three hours off the time it takes its roving teams to conduct restaurant inspections.

The system in question is Afaria, a product of Sybase subsidiary iAnywhere Solutions, and it runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC handheld terminals. Over 200 of these devices have been issued to the company's operations consultants, who each look after between eight and twenty restaurants (or more). They now enjoy personal information management, mobile reporting and monitoring tools.

Previously, the teams would record their restaurant visits through handwritten reports. The Afaria application has provided them with a straightforward "tick the box" style interface, through which they now input inspection details directly into their Windows Mobile devices as the inspections take place.

 

Not only does this eliminate the time wasted by typing handwritten notes after the inspection round is finished; it also standardises each restaurant's inspection criteria to allow comparison.

The big saving is that the solution cuts almost three hours from the two- to three-day process of inspecting restaurants - ensuring that information is available and can be acted upon in near-real time.

To enhance the use of the Pocket PC devices, McDonald's has also implemented Microsoft Exchange 2003, providing remote email access via the devices - something that is said to have helped greatly in the user adoption of the technology.

According to Keith Frimley, UK information systems business relationship manager at McDonald's UK: "The implementation provides McDonald's with an efficient, secure and reliable mobile solution.

"McDonald's operations consultants (our key internal customers) can now focus more of their time on helping restaurant managers and franchise holders improve standards across our estate, as well as save significant time in capturing and reporting information via the mobile application."

He adds: "What we sought was something rare when it comes to a lot of technology expenditure: a direct and tangible return. But that's what we have achieved. All our consultants are now saving time, executing a process that they understand, in a way that was just the most obvious approach to take, using technology to move and manipulate data."

He points out that each consultant now handles the information once. Then it is processed in many ways elsewhere in the business, enabling the consultants themselves to spend their energy on other value-added activities.

"We have already seen enormous benefits because of the records on current and past operational standards of our restaurants which are now stored centrally. This also helps us to focus on quality, service and cleanliness, so we can continually improve our customers' experience."