Digital Ordering System on Android
Abstract— Technology has entered
almost every field in our life, but still its effect is not yet that evident in
the food industry, especially the food serving outlets including restaurants,
hotels. Even today, most of the restaurants in India follow the traditional pen
and paper method to take orders from customers, which wastes a lot of time of
both, the customer and the restaurant. This work aims to substitute the
traditional pen and paper method by automating the food-ordering process in
restaurant and thus improving the dining experience of the customer.
This paper proposes an automated system that uses wireless communication, a centralized database, and an android application to place the order without even waiting for a waiter.
The android application installed in the touch screen device, fitted at the table, contains all the menu details with pictures of each item. The ordered details are wirelessly sent to the chef and the cashier. The manager has his own android application that is used to update the menu that updates the central database, view and manage table wise customers’ orders, and receive feedbacks from the customer. This system improves efficiency and accuracy for restaurants by saving time, eliminating human errors, getting customers feedback.
As the system is automated, it becomes economical even from restaurants point of view, as it reduces manpower and it just requires one time investment in installing the devices at tables. Keywords— Digital food-ordering system, Wireless food-ordering system, Android application, Touch based food-ordering system, On site Automated food-ordering system.
RELATEDWORK
A.Pen and paper based traditional system
This is the simplest and the most widely used system even today. In this system, every time a customer enters the restaurant and occupies his table, a waiter comes at his table and presents him a menu card, with the record of food-items. Waiter then waits with a notepad and a pen to take down the customer’s order. The waiter then notes down the order of the customer in his notepad and the record is stored in the paper.
This paper proposes an automated system that uses wireless communication, a centralized database, and an android application to place the order without even waiting for a waiter.
The android application installed in the touch screen device, fitted at the table, contains all the menu details with pictures of each item. The ordered details are wirelessly sent to the chef and the cashier. The manager has his own android application that is used to update the menu that updates the central database, view and manage table wise customers’ orders, and receive feedbacks from the customer. This system improves efficiency and accuracy for restaurants by saving time, eliminating human errors, getting customers feedback.
As the system is automated, it becomes economical even from restaurants point of view, as it reduces manpower and it just requires one time investment in installing the devices at tables. Keywords— Digital food-ordering system, Wireless food-ordering system, Android application, Touch based food-ordering system, On site Automated food-ordering system.
RELATEDWORK
A.Pen and paper based traditional system
This is the simplest and the most widely used system even today. In this system, every time a customer enters the restaurant and occupies his table, a waiter comes at his table and presents him a menu card, with the record of food-items. Waiter then waits with a notepad and a pen to take down the customer’s order. The waiter then notes down the order of the customer in his notepad and the record is stored in the paper.
Finally, the record is given to the chef in the kitchen. Although the food
ordering process in this system is very easy, there are many drawbacks in this
system. This system requires storage of lots of paper which does paper wastage.
Since, this is a complete manual process, there is a high chance of human errors
due to many reasons such as while taking the orders the waiter may miss some
items to add, the other human error is that the paper could get lost or could
get damaged by fire, or by water due to mishandling. The menu cards containing
the list of items are also in a hard paper. So, if the manager wants to update
the menu lists or the price of items, then it would require him to change the
menu details in each and every menu cards present in the restaurant.
It is quite evidently cumbersome task to change details in every card. So, eventually it leads to replacement of all the menu cards with the new one, which would lead to a great wastage of papers. Many times menu cards might require very minute changes for which it is not at all convenient to replace all the menu cards with the new ones. In simple words, these paper based menu cards lacks dynamicity. It even becomes a very difficult task for a restaurant manager to analyze the order lists of customers to determine the best-selling food items and the peak hour of restaurants to increase its market. There is also no proper tracking system in this pen and paper based ordering process. Waiter has to constantly check with the chefs to determine which orders are ready. They also need to check frequently which tables are empty, which are reserved and which tables need clearance. All these things require a large manpower that is costly even from restaurants point of view. It comes up with wastage of time, money and paper. So, there is a need among restaurants to change this system in order to stand out in this competitive food industry.
It is quite evidently cumbersome task to change details in every card. So, eventually it leads to replacement of all the menu cards with the new one, which would lead to a great wastage of papers. Many times menu cards might require very minute changes for which it is not at all convenient to replace all the menu cards with the new ones. In simple words, these paper based menu cards lacks dynamicity. It even becomes a very difficult task for a restaurant manager to analyze the order lists of customers to determine the best-selling food items and the peak hour of restaurants to increase its market. There is also no proper tracking system in this pen and paper based ordering process. Waiter has to constantly check with the chefs to determine which orders are ready. They also need to check frequently which tables are empty, which are reserved and which tables need clearance. All these things require a large manpower that is costly even from restaurants point of view. It comes up with wastage of time, money and paper. So, there is a need among restaurants to change this system in order to stand out in this competitive food industry.
B. Personal Digital Assistant (PDAs)
There were many improvements done in the food-ordering process, one among them was PDA based system. PDAs are small handheld devices that make them easy to handle and portable. PDA based system is a wireless system. Some examples of PDA based system are WOS, I-Menu, and FIWOS. These wireless food-ordering systems enable customers or waiters to key in order using mobile devices, called, Personal Digital Assistant. When a customer or waiter completes the ordering process, the order details are sent to the server from the PDA. The waiters collect the PDAs used by a customer so that other customers can use it.These PDA based system may be a better approach towards automated food-ordering system over traditional pen and paper based system but it has many limitations too. PDA based system may increase the restaurant expenditures during the peak hours, as during peak hours the restaurant require large numbers of PDAs to serve every customer. There is not any way to get a real time feedback from the customers, in PDA based system. Technical details are required for the restaurant manager to update or modify the menu list. The User Interface of the PDA based system is not so attractive. It consists of only textual information. There are no images of the food items. So, it contains unattractive and uninformative details about the menu list.
C.KIOSK based system
KIOSK is a screen that contains the complete menu list. It is more advanced than previous two systems. It not only contains the textual information about the menu items but also contains images of every food-item along with their prices. KIOSK screen in installed at the restaurants mostly near cash counter. Whenever, a customer visits a restaurant he has to check the menu list at the KIOSK screen. He browses through the list and selects his items and completes the order. Payment is also done through the KIOSK screen by a suitable payment option. He then receives his order number. His ordered list along with the order number is sent to the chef in kitchen. After the order is ready the order number is announced or displayed on the screen at the cash counter. The customer has to come and receive his order. This system, although, is more advanced than the previous two systems has limitations too. If the restaurant is in its peak hours and is crowded with many customers then this system ends up in forming a big queue for the KIOSK. It leads to frustrations and inconvenience among the customers. Eventually, it becomes even a worse option than other two systems in that case. This is the greatest disadvantage of this system. However, this system proves to be good with restaurants having moderate number customers or the restaurants that do quick orders such as, fast food.
D.Computer based food ordering
This system is similar to KIOSK technology system. In this system, when customer enters the restaurant, he has to orally tell the orders to the cashier and make the payment. The cashier makes a bill in his name with order number written in the bill. After placing the order the customer has to wait in his table. The cashier sends the order to the chef in the kitchen. When the order is completed, the waiter comes and serves the order to the customer at his table. This system being almost similar to the KIOSK based system has same limitations as that. If a large number of customers come in the restaurant then it would become difficult for the cashier to take the orders from each customer and send to the kitchen.
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