2014年11月24日星期一

How iPads are making airports fewer terrible

How iPads are making airports fewer terrible

An airport-restaurant company wish soon give birth to added customer-facing iPads than Apple itself.

Come again? If airports weren’t miserable gauntlets of lengthy shape, heat-lamp food, and ambient anxiety?

OTG Management, a company with the intention of runs airport restaurants, has been redesigning airport facilities around the land using Apple diplomacy and custom software to create travel fewer hellish. At the present the company is rotary its attention to Newark Liberty International Airport — lone of the busiest international hubs all the rage the United States.

Larger than the then 18 months OTG wish install 6,000 iPads on tables, bars, and stations in front of waiting areas right through United Airline’s terminal by Newark. Flashing your boarding pass all the rage front of the iPad’s camera pulls up your United profile, with running away in sequence, travel updates, and frequent have a crack miles. The course, which is opt-in, learns your preferences from your ancient purchases and recommends things it thinks you might dearth to purchase. If you by no means purchase the orange juice, it wish start screening you other options; if you keep export steak frites, it wish show off you steak sandwiches. "This is the game changer intended for personalization," says Albert Lee, OTG’s chief tools policewoman.

It’s a $120 million project with the intention of wish bring 55 in mint condition restaurants to the gift, more or less quite high-end intended for an airport. Here wish be present sushi, bahn mi, steak, dim sum, char-grill, a french brasserie, and a ramen pulling station beneath a metal mesh tower. All of them wish purpose the iPad ordering procedure.

Beneath the glitzy in mint condition hardware, OTG is using iOS to automate its restaurants’ workflows. As you purchase something, OTG’s software, called Flo, sends the order speedily to an iPad all the rage the kitchen. You salary either with frequent have a crack miles otherwise with a character license, swiped by a booklover on the put forward. As the order is up, the kitchen notifies a member of staff serving at table through an iPod contact all employee carries. If an order doesn’t follow selected up all the rage a timely style, the procedure pings the whole team. "We give birth to accountability each step of the way to create this a much added efficient process," Lee says.

Being added elements of restaurant and retail drive give birth to been automated, it's produced in mint condition opportunities intended for employee monitoring — if software is revealing workers come again? Tasks to make sure of, it's tranquil intended for it to as well let know someone whether persons tasks give birth to been made. Managers like it since it provides data on characteristic performance and creates pressure intended for employees to pitch customers harder. Of module, it as well raises concerns roughly surveillance of employees.

Lee says the procedure is a win-win: Waiters can help added tables and follow added tips, while customers don’t give birth to to delay to place an order otherwise follow a check. "We think this wish exalt the customer experience exclusive of requiring them to hire added community," Lee says. By automating all the order-taking and bill-delivering, Lee says, they’re allowing waiters to "have lone work and lone work merely: To keep the customer contented." He says with the intention of though the procedure wish allow waiters to deal with twice being many tables, this doesn’t mean OTG wish be present hiring fewer workers. As a replacement for, he says, workers wish give birth to added period to focus on hospitality. "We don’t believe all the rage broad computerization," Lee says. "We believe it’s a hybrid of community and tools."

OTG urban its procedure intended for airports, everywhere harried and baggage-laden travelers create velocity and convenience supreme, but it’s a preview of what’s to approach all the rage the quickly growing fast-casual restaurant industry. Panera and Chili’s recently installed tablet menus, and Chipotle, Taco Bell, and other fast-food companies give birth to keen apps intended for ordering pick-up. Across the industry the trend is on automating everything but the real cooking of food, making the purchasing process "as frictionless being likely," being Lee says. Then time, OTG wish roll dated its Flo procedure commercially intended for restaurants outside of the airport.

"A funny event happened along the way," says chief executive injure Blatstein. "We became a tools company." He says OTG is all the rage talks with several fast-casual chains roughly adopting its procedure.

OTG ongoing administration airport restaurants all the rage 1996, but the company smash into its pace like the introduction of the iPad, growing 70 percent since it essential ongoing using the diplomacy all the rage 2011. It at the present manages larger than 200 restaurants all the rage 11 airports, as well as terminals all the rage in mint condition York, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Philadelphia. With the United terminal, the company says it wish develop into the leading deployer of customer-facing iPads all the rage the planet, using added iPads than Apple uses all the rage its supplies. Newark’s terminal wish be present the single leading employment all the rage the planet and wish bring the company’s full add up to of iPads to around 13,000. OTG as well says passengers use 43 percent added by its terminals than they make sure of on middling.

By Newark, OTG’s goal is to give birth to iPads proliferate right through the terminal, not a moment ago by restaurants. You can order whatever thing from anywhere all the rage the airport, and someone wish surrender it to you. "If you set eyes on an iPad all the rage a waiting opportunity, and realize you forgot your headphones, you can sit here and someone wish bring you a match up of headphones and a beer while you delay," Lee says.

They’ll give birth to employees scattered right through the airport who can pick up goods and bring them to you, directed by their iPod touches — intended for at the present. Lee says you can "connect the dots" and set eyes on the appeal of an Apple Watch intended for directing employees to the then task.

OTG is as well taxing iBeacon, Apple’s Bluetooth Low Energy diplomacy with the intention of can correctly locate smartphone users all the rage buildings everywhere GPS doesn’t drive. Other airports give birth to been experimenting with using iBeacon to propel travel in sequence to passengers and help them navigate the terminal. OTG would purpose them to assassinate employees to surrender goods right through the airport.

It would circle airports into automated shopping malls, everywhere you sit by your gate and employees surrender your purchases to you. The airport would develop into like an inside, small-scale, super-fast version of mobile-enabled import all the rage the outside planet: Uber intended for everything, delivered to wherever you’re sitting all the rage a only some minutes. If it facility, expect to set eyes on a luck of the same technologies pop up outside the airport, too.

Tags : Ipad


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