Reverse Case Analysis

Mind and machines, the tendency of these new machines is to replace human judgement on all levels. Machines are generally more accurate than humans. Machines solve problems and complete non-routine tasks. Machines are rapidly increasing and expanding capabilities and before we know will take over many human tasks.

Eatsa is a fast food restaurant chain that is based in San Francisco. Eatsa sells a selection of vegetarian dishes with the main ingredient of quinoa and the cool thing about Eatsa is that you can go into the restaurant, get your food and never have to interact with a human. You walk in, place your order using an iPad or a mobile device and then you pick up your food in a cubie dispenser, which uses the name taken from your credit card and associates it with a number to tell you when your bowl is ready. Eatsa has definitely taken fast food innovation to another level with the use of machines.

Despite the fact that this innovative restaurant is a quick and easy way to get your healthy food, there are several ways that Eatsa is handling technology poorly. Eatsa wants to do more than just ordering meals through machines, they also want to automate how food is prepared. Food preparation is not a task that machines can currently handle. Human cooks are used instead of robots because preparation in the kitchen requires objects to be processed such as avocadoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and so on- all of which are irregularly shaped and not completely rigid, which is something that robots are not able to comprehend yet. If Eatsa goes through with solely using robots to prepare the food in the kitchen it will run into major challenges. For example, let’s say that a bin full of chopped tomatoes is not in the exact location that it was yesterday, the robot will not be able to understand this and see it as an error, which will make the kitchen completely inoperative and the entire concept of the Eatsa restaurant irrelevant.

Another example of Eatsa handling technology poorly is their payment processing. When customers order and pay for their orders, customers are not able to pay with cash, which is a huge issue. In a survey conducted by the FDIC in 2015, it indicated that 7.0 percent of households in the United States were unbanked. This proportion represents approximately 9.0 million households (FDIC, 2015). If this represents 9.0 million households, imagine how much potential clientele Eatsa is losing for not accepting cash. Unfortunately, there are people in the world that do not have credit cards or are unable to get them. Eatsa can easily incorporate machines that accept cash, which would potentially increase their sales. Machines that accept cash, are something that currently exist. They currently have these machines in the self-checkout lanes in Target, Walmart and Publix. It really is a simple fix, that will help create additional revenue for Eatsa.

Other than those two issues, I think that Eatsa is a brilliant idea for a healthy fast food place. They have machines currently providing services instead of humans, which is cost efficient as they don’t have any overhead (wages, salary, insurance etc.) charges with machines. This is definitely a plus, because with these savings they are taking home more profits. I believe that they have the right idea and are definitely going places with it, but with some minor tweaks they can actually use technology better than how they are currently doing so. If Eatsa came to Miami, I would definitely be first in line, would LOVE me some Eatsa.