Xueba's computing system

Chapter 248 Technology is a double-edged sword

The standardization plan for the takeout industry has finally been released.

Although Lin Yuan's current identity is inextricably linked to overseas capital, Longguo has this good point - it knows how to appoint the right people to the right positions.

In the standardized takeout solution that Lin Yuan launched, he restricted the AI administrator algorithm and did not allow the algorithm to branch out unconstrainedly.

He introduced the concept of "algorithm tax".

Algorithms bring standardization, thus paving the way for mass production, which means scale. Scale is naturally suitable for integration with big capital.

Therefore, the food delivery industry, which has been enhanced by algorithms, will inevitably face the same situation as after the industrial revolution. Under the support of standardization and mass production, the agricultural revolution has become vulnerable.

When compared to real life, this is the situation where large restaurant chains are crushing small and medium-sized restaurant businesses.

Originally, small and medium-sized businesses could compete with large catering companies on different tracks by differentiating their tastes and features. Small and medium-sized businesses are more likely to come up with new ideas in terms of food features and tastes, while large catering chains are limited by their size and must take a standardized and easily replicable path.

Just like KFC, it is impossible for it to come up with a bunch of different flavors in one city.

Because this will seriously hinder its product development and purchasing and stocking.

Once the number of food types and production steps increases, it will be impossible to lower costs through large-scale procurement and standardized batch production, and the scale effect on which large restaurant chains rely for their survival will no longer exist.

Imagine if KFC gave customers a menu with hundreds of foods. Would KFC have to have a chef in every store, and would each store have to purchase ingredients independently based on its own business conditions?

Eventually everyone will realize that there is no point in having a chain restaurant. The result of this approach is nothing more than a bunch of small restaurants.

However, AI manager algorithms can easily solve these problems.

First, employee training.

Even if there are hundreds or even thousands of dishes, the chain restaurant headquarters only needs to complete a one-time development. The rest of the employee cooking training process and the corresponding assessment process can be completely controlled by the algorithm.

There is no need for anyone to master the cooking process of all those dishes, as long as AI understands it.

AI will be responsible for the training and assessment of each employee, and can even remind the operator of every step in detail, such as how many grams of sugar should be added at this time, or whether the dish is ready to be served.

The cost of personnel training in traditional industries increases linearly with the increase in product categories, but after the introduction of AI algorithms, the cost of personnel training is almost zero. This is because AI can completely do the work, and AI can use surveillance images to check in real time whether employees' actions are in compliance.

For example, in the purchasing process, the biggest fear of purchasing is small quantity and many categories.

If there are too many categories, it will be difficult for suppliers to stock up. If the quantity is small, the price cannot be pushed down.

Therefore, large catering companies cannot put a whole page of menus like small restaurants do. They prefer the model of selling milk tea. Because the raw materials of milk tea can be atomized. The main raw materials of milk tea are milk, milk powder, tea powder, and various flavoring agents.

But you can’t play with the dishes in this way, after all, the meat used for the braised pork and shredded pork with green peppers is different.

So here comes the algorithm.

Another powerful feature of the AI manager algorithm is that it atomizes the ingredients of the food.

Why can't a piece of pork belly used for braised pork be cut into shredded meat? It's not that no one has thought about this, but it would break the general operation process. For large enterprises, everything needs to be streamlined. The most feared thing is that there are too many and too complicated processes.

A piece of pork belly can be broken down into lean meat, fat and pig skin, each of which can have its own use. However, the cost of this process is definitely much higher than directly purchasing lean meat, fat and pig skin.

So large catering companies won’t do this.

But that's not the way to do it. For every portion of braised pork, you need to prepare a corresponding portion of pork belly, and for every portion of shredded pork with green pepper, you need a corresponding portion of pork tenderloin.

The internal procedures of large catering companies only describe how to make pork tenderloin into shredded pork for stir-fried pork with green peppers, but they don’t write that lean pork belly can be used as an emergency substitute when necessary. Of course, the above is just an inappropriate example. It is mainly used to solve the contradiction between standardization and customization.

This is very common in industrial situations.

Every company in the industrial field likes to make standard products, even if the profit is lower. This is because standardization can reduce the cost of production, process and quality control processes, and it is also convenient for large-scale purchases to reduce costs. Then profits can be made through batches.

In short, although customized products may seem to have high profits per piece, there are too many sunk management costs. Therefore, general manufacturers generally dislike customized products and will charge high prices for customized products.

The same is true for the catering industry, because the catering industry is also an industrial production industry to a certain extent.

The most powerful thing about the AI manager algorithm is that it automatically analyzes the material composition of each meal.

That’s right, Lin Yuan thinks it is more appropriate to summarize it using the concept of “material composition of food”.

"Ingredients" is a term in the culinary field, while "materials" is a term in the industrial field.

If we look at a meal from an industrial perspective, we would naturally use the word "material" to describe it.

The biggest feature of materials is that they can be replaced.

The concept of material substitution has always existed in the industrial field, because it is impossible to prepare all the materials needed for future production in advance without any difference.

If you have some 5% precision resistors in stock, and the production requirement is 10% precision, would you just leave the 5% precision resistors unused and go out and purchase 10% precision resistors instead?

Not only does the procurement process waste time, but material squeeze will also cause cash flow obstruction.

Which company can accept such nonsense?

So Lin Yuan applied this industrial production thinking to AI training.

The AI manager algorithm also performed well and quickly found alternatives for various dishes.

The role of the algorithm in procurement is actually to provide a greatest common divisor guidance when purchasing based on the operating conditions of each merchant.

This greatest common divisor guidance is similar to breaking down the ingredients for the meals into raw materials for milk tea, so that more meals can be combined with fewer ingredients.

If this process is done by humans, it would be a terrible thing and would greatly increase management costs.

After adopting the AI manager algorithm, major catering companies have discovered that they can really use the concept of material management to manage the flow of ingredients in each chain store.

As a result, the advantages of small and medium-sized businesses in terms of variety, taste and characteristics compared to large catering companies have gradually been eroded.

Especially the taste advantage.

The taste is completely determined by the heat and seasoning, which is too easy for AI. It can be learned after watching it once.

So much so that large restaurant chains can offer customized flavors for each customer, because it’s nothing more than listening to the AI prompt in the headphones while cooking: “Please fill the small seasoning container No. 3 with No. 9 chili powder and pour it into the pot.”

In other words, the operator does not need to think about different flavors, just listen to the AI's instructions. Even if the operator makes a mistake, the AI will sound an alarm.

Then the unique cooking advantages of small and medium-sized restaurants will be gone.

Technology has once again demonstrated its double-edged sword nature.

This is naturally what Lin Yuan does not want to see. He does not want the streets to be filled with all kinds of restaurant chains in the future and no more fly-in-the-wall restaurants.

(End of this chapter)