At the cavernous, sprawling Artisan’s Playground in Kuala Lumpur, I end ordering a meal of smoked duck – through QR code, as is the norm as of late.
Ten minutes later, I watch in awe as a cute little robot trundles gracefully to my desk, pausing for a second when a person inadvertently walks simply in entrance of it, earlier than resuming its journey and touchdown smack dab proper in entrance of my desk – with my smoked duck secured safely on one of the 4 trays that make up its core construction and performance.
I choose up my meals, and provides the robot, referred to as BellaBot, a lightweight caress, to which it responds with an affectionate purr earlier than rushing off on its subsequent course of motion.
This may need appeared virtually unattainable to fathom simply two years in the past, however for the reason that introduction of the Covid-19 pandemic, robot waiters have turn into an more and more widespread sight in the Malaysian restaurant panorama, particularly at chain eateries, fast-casual eating places and even mamak haunts.
The rise in demand for these robots has been nothing brief of phenomenal. China-based firm Pudu Robotics (the founder of BellaBot) as an example, is one of the most important robotics corporations in China, with a presence in over 10,000 eating places there.
While people can usually solely carry just a few trays or plates of meals, robot waiters can carry a lot extra, guaranteeing quicker desk service. — PIXABAY/Pexels
The model’s nation supervisor Eva Hu says that when the corporate launched in 2016, folks needed to be persuaded that robot waiters had a spot in eating places, however issues have since modified very dramatically in the final two years.
“Earlier, restaurant owners were not convinced, because not many people were using robots. But in China, once Haidilao (a popular hotpot chain) started using robot waiters, other restaurants followed suit, so our sales shot up. And then in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic started, that helped us educate restaurant owners that robot waiters could do contactless delivery, and our sales rose.
“In 2021, we set up our overseas team because we could see the opportunity in the global market. There is a huge demand for robot waiters now because the manpower shortage is all over the world, not just in Malaysia,” says Hu.
Hu’s assertion is backed up by proof. Although Pudu Robotics solely arrange operations in Malaysia late final 12 months, its robot waiters at the moment are out there in greater than 300 Malaysian eating places, together with Artisan Playground, Q Bistro, Din Tai Fung, Haidilao and OldTown White Coffee (which is able to begin utilizing the robots in chosen shops in just a few weeks’ time) – all fairly acquainted names to locals of each stripe.
So simply how did robot waiters – as soon as a very international idea – turn into more and more ubiquitous in the restaurant trade?
Hu says robot waiters are literally a fairly cost-efficient choice for eating places as there are month-to-month cost choices that work out to the identical or much less as hiring a full-time waiter. — PUDU ROBOTICS
Popularity of robot waiters
One of the important thing causes that robot waiters have propelled to the realm of normalcy in the F&B trade is as a result of labour shortage has been notably dire for the reason that rise of Covid-19. In Malaysia, the trade – which depends closely on international labour – is now brief of no less than 40,000 restaurant employees. And with international labour approval charges nonetheless fairly low, the shortfall will seemingly solely proceed.
This is compounded by the truth that Malaysians merely don’t appear to wish to work in the restaurant trade in any respect, and those that do typically solely do it for a brief interval of time, leaving many F&B operators in the lurch.
Ng thinks robot waiters supply a viable answer for the nationwide F&B manpower shortage because the robot waiters are environment friendly and by no means get drained, in contrast to human waiters. — KELVIN NG“Nowadays the younger generation is quite picky about jobs – they really want flexibility. So it is harder to get staff, especially for F&B where we have to work on weekends and public holidays and pull long hours. It doesn’t interest young people that much, so it is really, really hard to get staff to work in the industry,” says Kelvin Ng, the mission supervisor at Johnny’s, a preferred Thai eatery with a number of shops positioned largely in buying malls.
With labour woes persevering with to threaten to topple the trade (whilst demand for dine-in soars), robot waiters have turn into an more and more viable choice for a lot of restaurant house owners.
Interestingly, in many eating places, robot waiters complement the present human workers and the 2 typically work in tandem with one another. This can also be as a result of most robot waiters don’t do human issues like chatting with clients or attending to particular requests.
Instead, they do all of the menial, labour-intensive duties that usually deplete human vitality, most notably delivering heavy meals, drinks and desserts. This is particularly pertinent as a result of many robot waiters can maintain as much as 10 occasions the load {that a} single human server can bear!
The BellaBot as an example, has 4 trays. Each tray has a capability of 10 kilos, that means the robot can carry as much as 40kg when delivering meals to clients. It additionally has a battery life of between 12 to 24 hours, so in contrast to a human being, it may well preserve serving meals with out getting bodily exhausted in any tangible method (which is just about bodily unattainable for mere mortals!).
“The shortage of staff is what triggered us to use robots, because the functionality of robots is very good. So normally one staff can only bring one tray of food to one table. So if there are four trays, they would need to go back and forth four times, but a robot waiter already has multiple trays so they can serve four tables in one delivery period!
“So it really helps, because staff don’t have to do these tiring physically-intensive tasks. And let’s not forget, if staff are tired out from all this manual labour, they won’t have the attentiveness or focus or effectivity. So if we take that out of their job scope, they can be more effective in other ways, like attending to customer needs,” explains Ng.
Ng additionally says that as a result of this can be very troublesome to seek out kitchen workers, having an environment friendly robot waiter means some of the wait workers will be moved to the kitchen to assist with prep work, thus overlaying the workers shortfall and giving eating places extra flexibility.
Another one of the elemental advantages of robot waiters is that they take away the damaging points of human beings from the equation – they don’t run out of steam, complain, fall sick, take go away or negotiate for the next wage. The incontrovertible fact that they’re robots means constant efficiency with none fuss or drama.
“Robots don’t feel tired, they don’t need overtime and they don’t have a hundred excuses about why they can’t come to work. So they are very worthwhile solutions,” says Ng.
Robot evolution
In the previous, robot waiters required ceiling markers or flooring tracks to control their path in eating places, which meant motion was each restricted and repetitive and allowed for zero deviations to this sample.
Robot waiters usually can go between 12 to 24 hours of continuous service earlier than their batteries should be recharged. — ARTISAN’S PLAYGROUNDBut these machines have since come a good distance and are extra agile and future-forward. Many at the moment are in a position to detect oncoming visitors (together with different robots) thus avoiding undesirable collisions. Many trendy robots even have in-built know-how that may accommodate sudden modifications resembling a structure shift, and many others, thus providing F&B operators extra leeway and fluidity ought to one thing sudden occur.
Huen Su San, the founder of Artisan’s Playground, a brand new F&B idea the place a number of operators run their enterprise in one house (principally a high-end meals courtroom) says these technological developments are what satisfied her to maneuver forward with robot waiters.
“At Artisan, we have the capacity to serve 450 people and our whole space is 33,000 square feet. So when we were conceptualising the dine-in, we wanted a more creative solution in order to have effective service, given the manpower shortage.
“So we tested out robot waiters and I was quite pleased and satisfied with the developments in these robots. The technology they are using is a game-changer – they can see other objects and communicate with each other, so you can add a table or change the layout of the restaurant if you want to.
“I think they are really smart and a great partner to work alongside humans,” says Huen, including that Artisan’s Playground now makes use of 9 robot waiters that work alongside 10 human waiters.
When the value is true
F&B house owners usually function on very lean revenue margins and labour prices typically take up an enormous chunk of this, however are additionally constant – someplace in the area of RM1,500 to RM2,800 per human waiter on a month-to-month foundation.
Huen determined to make use of robot waiters at Artisan’s Playground as she felt they had been an efficient answer and the present machines are very tech-savvy and versatile. — HUEN SU SANSo how does a robot waiter fare in comparability? Upon first inspection, it’d look like robot waiters are eye-wateringly costly, with many fashions starting from RM40,000 to RM60,000!
But there’s a caveat to this and a bonus too in that almost all robotics corporations supply a lease-to-own plan, which works out to RM1,000 to RM2,000 a month. After paying this off, the robot belongs to the respective restaurant.
“This makes more sense for the restaurant owner because waiters’ salaries are getting higher and the owner also has to pay for staff insurance, overtime, etc. Also many restaurant staff don’t stay for very long, but for robot waiters, the life span is at least five years.
“For example, our first-generation robot has been used for more than five years in the market already. And when we asked restaurant owners if they would like to replace the units, they say it is still working fine,” says Hu.
Because robot waiters are so new in the market, many restaurant house owners in Malaysia have but to face any technical points with their fashions. So it stays to be seen how these fashions fare in the long-run.
Ng nevertheless says that regardless of the associated fee of the robots, in the long-term, the advantages far outweigh the value.
“You might think a robot is very expensive but if you don’t have enough staff, that is revenue foregone because people might get tired of queueing up or waiting for their food. So that is revenue that you are denying your restaurant. With the sales generated from having enough wait staff, you can cover the cost of the robot in no time,” he says.
Perhaps probably the most engaging characteristic of robot waiters is that they’re presently an enormous draw for many eating places, particularly amongst younger adults in addition to households with youngsters, as kids love the robots!
“The robots work as a magnet for customers, because people find it very interesting. So sometimes when our staff serve food, people will say, ‘No, I want the robot to serve me!’ So it is actually a great marketing tool because people are attracted to come to our outlets,” says Ng.
Limitations
The actuality is, regardless of their worth, there are some limitations to robot waiters and this boils right down to the type of restaurant that may use them in the primary place.
Although Thang finds robot waiters cute, he doesn’t really feel just like the machines would work effectively in extra upscale, refined institutions like his. — NICHOLAS THANGNicholas Thang for instance is the chef-owner of The Honest Butcher by Nickt, an upscale omakase restaurant in Sunway Damansara. While Thang says he finds robot waiters “cute”, they merely wouldn’t work in a restaurant like his, which is designed round buyer expertise.
“I think places like mine that are more upmarket still need a more personal, human touch, because people are paying for the service and they have certain expectations,” he says.
Huen additionally says that whereas a stylish restaurant like Artisan’s Playground blends in with the tech-savvy idea of a robot, this won’t match in fairly as effectively with a extra anachronistic, quaint eatery.
“We are a modern restaurant, all our ordering is done through QR codes, so the robot waiters are tied into this concept. If a restaurant is old-fashioned, a robot might not fit in,” she admits.
Is the longer term robotic?
Nearly all F&B operators and even robotics corporations themselves don’t see robot waiters as ever having the ability to absolutely substitute human waiters. Instead, shifting ahead, the 2 are prone to perform collectively as a tag crew of kinds, filling in the gaps the place needed.
Having robot waiters to deal with all of the heavy bodily labour ensures that waiters are in a position to higher work together with clients and take care of the extra human parts of the job. — ARTISAN’S PLAYGROUND“At the end of the day, people want to talk to a human, not a robot. Robots are there to help, but the human element still has to be there. So for me, having robots just means that we can redirect humans to do more human things, like customer service and interaction,” says Huen.
Moving ahead, the large query is – are robot waiters only a stopgap measure to plug the opening precipitated by manpower points or are they right here for the long-run?
In this sense, most F&B operators consider they’re positively right here to remain and can turn into much more indispensable in the longer term, as know-how adapts and grows smarter and extra environment friendly.
“Oh, we will definitely see more restaurants embracing robot waiters, especially with the manpower shortage the industry is experiencing – this is just the way of the future,” confirms Huen.
