Thanks to two industrial robots, the Los Gatos restaurant BurgerBots can produce made-to-order burgers in record time, leaving personal hospitality to human staff.
In Los Gatos, California, the future is now: The startup BurgerBots has recently opened its first location, where burger flipping is completely automated. Rather than a teenage fry cook, two industrial robots – an ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker® and a collaborative YuMi® cobot – handle all productions steps from taking to completing orders. Most impressively, it takes just 27 seconds for these cybercooks to prepare each burger.
The system sees orders placed digitally, with customers receiving a box with a QR code where the details of their order are stored. That box is then scanned before moving through various stations on a conveyor belt. The FlexPicker selects the right ingredients, while the YuMi places them precisely to build each burger. At the end, the finished product is served by humans.
BurgerBots was founded by entrepreneur Elizabeth Truong in response to the increasing staff shortages and rising operating costs in the food service industry. The many standardized, repetitive tasks inherent in fast food preparation are particularly suitable for automation. According to a survey by manufacturer ABB, 89% of restaurant managers and 73% of employees welcome greater automation of certain processes, in order to reduce the workloads and increase operational efficiency. The Los Gatos restaurant is seen as merely the first step towards a broader commercial rollout.
