Late afternoon one day, I ordered a coffee latte in a Portland Oregon Starbucks.
I waited for the order. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Four minutes. No latte.
What had happened? The 3 baristas were all swapping stories and laughing.
My order. Forgotten.
I was getting thoughtful. Three employees on a slow afternoon. Very expensive corner retail space. This was a disruption opportunity to save $100/hour.
The future barista possibilities, realities, and probabilities churned around my head:
the future barista could be a robot.
The Past
This was very possible. More than 30 years ago, I had selected and programmed industrial robots in an automotive plant. Some were welding robots. Some were pick and place robots. I thought: a pick and place robotic arm could be the future barista.
A pick and place robot is robotic arm that picks and object up and then places in another location. Simple. Dependable. Accurate 30 years ago to 0.001 of an inch.
And, now we have voice recognition, so the robotic arm would be able to understand the order and push the correct button on a machine.
The Present
Well, ‘pick and place’ robotic technology is not new. I was sure my idea was not new.
So, a little searching proved that others had designed and implemented a robotic barista.
Café X had deployed a new robotic barista in 2017 designed to offer 120 cups of coffee/hour.
Check it out at:
Cost = $25K. How does it work?
“The robo unit is essentially a fully operational café beneath a $25,000 six-axis animatronic arm. Customers place orders on a kiosk touchscreen or via the Cafe X app and receive a text when the drink is ready, after around a minute of preparation. Like at a regular coffeehouse, you get a multitude of beverage options: latte, single-origin espresso, matcha latte, cortado and so on, and with different types of frothy milk, including organic Swedish oat milk.”
What about the coffee shop personal experience?:
“Even the robot gestures are crafted to evoke a true coffee bar experience. As it presents each cup to customers, the machine offers a sweeping “ta-da!” gesture.”[i]
The Future
Think about it. Robotic baristas all around the world.
In Japan, a robot called Sawyer can make five cups of coffee at once, which is way more than 3 at Starbucks could do recently. Catch it at:
Just look around you, what jobs around you or even your own, do you think could be automated?
Bio: Greg Hutchins PE CERM is the founder of: 800.Compete.com, WorkingIt.com. CERMAcademy.com, QualityPlusEngineering.com, and other firms. Greg Is also the author of Supply Chain Risk Management. He can be reached at 503.233.1012 or GregH@QualityPlusEngineering.com
[i] ‘This $25000 Robotic Arm Wants to Put Your Starbucks Barista Out of Business, David Hochman, CNBC, May 8, 2018, CNBC.
Bio:
Greg Hutchins PE and CERM (503.233.101 & GregH@QualityPlusEngineering.com) is the founder of:
CERMAcademy.com
800Compete.com
QualityPlusEngineering.com
WorkingIt.com
He is the evangelist behind Future of Quality: Risk®. He is currently working on the Future of Work and machine learning projects.
He is a frequent speaker and expert on Supply Chain Risk Management and cyber security. His current books available on all platform are shown below:
