SUKI DINERS TO BE SERVED BY ROBOTS

       Diners at MK Restaurants - Thailand's biggest chain of suki restaurants - will soon be served by "robotic service agents" instead of human waiters and waitresses.
       Deploying robots to serve the food is MK's latest move to impress its customers with a big IT project. It plans to launch a trial with a first batch of 10 robots within six to 10 months.
       Managing director Rit Thirakomen said MK would spend Bt10 million on developing the first 10 robotic service agents, or Bt1 million each. They would pilot a new food-serving feature, the objectives of which were to increase customer satisfaction at MK Restaurants and encourage local development of commercial robots.
       "We will trial one 'fleet' of 10 robots which will rotate throughout more than 300 branches. To deploy the robots to serve food, we will need to redesign and renovate the floor plan of each branch to allow the robots to walk smoothly. All the robots will be locally researched and developed as we want to support the local robot industry," Rit said.
       The company is also planning to invest in two other IT projects that are aimed at increasing customer satisfaction and improving its productivity. They are a member card project and an inventory system, both based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.
       Rit said the company planned to enhance the good relationship between MK Restaurants and its customers by issuing RFID-based member cards. In this way, existing customers will immediately be recognised in any branch and details revealed such as their favourite dishes.
       The new RFID-equipped member cards will replace about 1 million existing member cards.
       "With the smarter member cards, we will be able to treat our regular customers with the same standard of service as soon as they come in, even at different branches. Currently, we only know they are cardholding customers when billing, because we ask for a member card for giving discounts. With the RFID cards, our members will get special treats wherever they visit," he said.
       However, because the new cards will involve more private information, such as customers' tastes and favourite dishes, the company will be more concerned about privacy issues and it may launch the service on the basis of permission granted. In any case, the card project will follow the arrival of the robots.
       "The estimated cost of implementing the RFID member cards is about Bt30 million to Bt40 million. If we wanted to do it straight away, it would cost Bt50 million to Bt60 million - so we're waiting for the price to come down to meet our budget," Rit said.
       Last but not least is a plan to implement RFID technology to increase the efficiency of the company's inventory.
       Rit said an RFID system would replace an existing manual system that used stickers for cycling materials - mostly fresh products - in the company's inventory.
       Since food quality and safety is a big challenge for any food business, the efficiency of inventory turnaround in a company like MK is very important, Rit said. There are about 500 items, or stock-keeping units, in the company's inventory, with a time range of between three and four days. In the case of fresh vegetables, they must be in stock for no more than one day.
       "We plan to improve our inventory system with new technology. It will possibly be RFID, but we also have our eyes on a barcode system. We are in a research and development process and we expect to be ready to implement it in the near future," Rit said.
       MK Restaurants has been investing in IT every year for almost a decade. Its minimum annual investment budget is Bt20 million to Bt30 million for maintenance of its IT systems, including all back-office functions such as accounting, reporting, human resources, analyses, logistics and daily operations. Investment in the new IT projects, from robots to RFID technology, is extra.
       Earlier, the restaurants made a highlight of a personal digital assistant (PDA)-based ordering system, which allowed the improvement of service times in food ordering. This created a lot of customer satisfaction, Rit said.
       Each regularly-sized restaurant with a serving staff of about 40 people was given about 10 PDA units, access points and a server that together cost about Bt250,000 per restaurant. The system was able to save about 3 to 6 per cent in operating costs over a six-month period. Over a year, the electronic-ordering system was able to break even.
       The restaurant chain also invested in global-positioning systems installed in all of its 110 trucks to improve its logistics management. In this way the company has saved By2 million in fuel costs per year.