As a bustling quick-service restaurant hummed with activity from the dinner rush, Sarah, a dedicated worker, was summoned to the backroom for the daily inventory count. Minutes ticked by as she painstakingly tallied items equipped with only a pencil and checklist. She occasionally returned to the front to help customers. Exhausted, Sarah’s mind wandered, double counting and missing items on her list.
After making her way through the entire back-of-house and ensuring to count the make-line, she turned her attention to enter the data into the restaurant’s tracking system. Her shift was ending and counts for ordering were due in just five minutes. There wasn’t time to check for mistakes.
This event plays out across restaurants on a daily basis.
In the fast-paced world of foodservice, managing inventory is a constant challenge. Whether operators are counting inventory for department counts, order placement, make-line checks, prep-list building, or confirming distributor deliveries, the traditional method of counting items is riddled with pain points and operational inefficiencies.
The most obvious is that counts are labor intensive. Often times these counts are performed by high value employees like a shift supervisor. Like Sarah, these resources should be focused on managing teams or engaging with guests. Instead, they’re in the backroom counting inventory.
Counts are also prone to inaccuracies that drive up food costs. By overordering products, operators open themselves to increasing food waste. Worse yet, not ordering enough leads to out-of-stocks and lost sales. Add to this the fact that inventory is the least-like job by employees, causing operators to reduce the frequency of counts.
Recognizing these pain points, Nomad Go, the leader in foodservice AI and computer vision, developed an innovative solution that promises to transform inventory management. Its platform, METAshelf, combines computer vision with augmented reality to automate inventory counts with a scalable hand-held solution.
Using METAshelf is like stepping into a futuristic world where inventory management is fast, accurate, and fun. Instead of manual data input, users quickly scan inventory using a device and instantly see data overlaid on top of the real world as they walk their store. This dramatically reduces the time and effort to complete an inventory job, but also delivers nearly perfect accuracy, which is then passed directly to an IMS or ordering system.
The technology is built to go anywhere. “Food-service back-of-house environments are notoriously tight and crowded,” says Nomad Go’s CEO, David Greschler. “Whether inventory is stored on shelves in a dark corner or in temperature-controlled refrigerator or walk-in, Nomad Go’s AI can recognize, scan, and capture counts with nothing more than a commodity handheld device.”
METAshelf doesn’t stop with counts; it empowers operators with a suite of features that drive efficiency and optimize operations. With real-time data, restaurant brands gain unparalleled visibility into their supply chain. This visibility unlocks upstream value, enabling predictive forecasts, automated ordering, and just-in-time inventory.
To learn more, visit nomad-go.com.
