There is an article about an innovation by a team of engineering students from Nanyang Technology University (NTU) called Trayable (Cleaner and faster dining with Trayable, click here). The innovation aims to speed up the rate in which tables are cleared at food court by cleaners. According to them, the main reason for the lack of tables is that the cleaners are unable to clear the tables fast enough. The design involves removing a portion of a laser-cut acrylic table top, which creates a gap for the conventional food court trays to fit nicely into it. This will encourage diners to eat within their individual trays instead of placing them on the table. By doing so, this will reduces food spillage (on the table as food will spills into the tray). Cleaners can clear the table much faster by just removing the whole tray and do not need to wipe the table for any spillage too. To make it easier for diners to look for empty seats during peak hours, the team also devised a wireless system where diners can check out for empty seats on a LED board placed at the entrance of an eatery. Whenever a tray is placed on top of the table, the light for that particular seat will change color to indicate that it's taken which will be reflected on the LED board. This is an idea similar to the one used in car parks which allow visitors to find parking space easily by looking for lot with the green light indication above it, which means it's empty. Many of us know that these are common problems we face everyday in food courts and hawker centers. Difficulties in finding seats or finding tables full of empty bowls, food spillage and tissue all over the place, as if a hurricane has just swept past, uncleared. While the innovation design proposed by the students seem to solve these problems. But do they really solve the problems? Let's take a look and let's work it backward. Say you go to a food court for a meal. What do people usually do first? They look for a seat. For some, they probably go buy their food first, if they are alone. When they find a seat, they'll leave their things (tissue, staff pass, groceries, anything) on the table or chairs to indicate that it's taken before heading to buy their food. Or they take turns to buy their food or get someone to buy for them. Now if it's off peak hours, the eating places will be less crowded and much easier to find empty seats. And when there are many tables available, most people would not share a table with strangers. They will also prefer to have a table to themselves if they are carrying many things with them so they could place them on the other chairs. If it's peak hours, sharing of tables is common but there's no denying that there will be a few inconsiderate diners who place their personal belongings on another chair, thus depriving others from using it. Assuming the wireless system is implemented and you walk into a food court and look at the LED board to find an empty seat. Ok, you see one right inside at a corner and then you walk in. Although similar to car park system, it's unlike the car park system where a driver just need to look out for the green light above each lot. Unless the food court have indication light above each and every seat like those in car park, what makes you think the seat will still be available from the moment you see it on the LED board and the time you reached the seat? Most food courts and hawker centers have multiple entrance/exit points and human traffic flow is very unpredictable. Unless there's only one point of entry and there's strict control over the flow of diners into the place, how useful is the LED board in helping diners find empty seats? Another diner coming in from another entrance nearer to the empty seat would have reached it before you do. Now, the system will shows a seat taken when a tray is placed on top of the table. As mentioned above, most people look for seats before getting their food. Nobody likes to carry a tray of food walking around looking for empty seat and risks overturning it. This means that the seat will only be indicated as taken on the LED board after he or she has bought the food and placed it on the table. What happens then? You'll probably see a lot of empty seats on the LED board only to find out that they have all been taken up with all the personal belongings left on the chairs. And what about a couple or two friends or family members buying from the same stall? They only need one person to go buy and probably one tray to put their dishes on. With the wireless system, are they required to put one dish on one tray and make two trips? And there are those with kids. What if they order a dish to share with the kid who takes up seat? What if there are two persons but only one is eating? Not forgetting those who prefer not to put their dish on a tray. In addition, sometimes you see people moving chairs from another table so the 5 of them can sit in a table for 4. And what if you're just buying two cups of coffee? Do you need two trays? Do you even need a tray? The car park system works because the light indicators give up-to-date information on the current actual situation. Unlike the food court wireless system, a driver knows exactly which lot is empty as he can sees it. The wireless system is similar to another car park system where it shows how many lots available within a car park and not the actual location of the empty lots. The actual empty lots are indicated by the light above each lot. All these means that the LED board may not be a clear reflection of the actual situation in the food court. Unless they can program it to have a light indicator above each seat, then it would be quite useless. However, this is also challenging as they require a tray to be placed on the table. In a car park, when a lot is taken it's taken. But in the food court, a table can still be occupied even if there's no tray placed on the table. Talking about placing of tray into the gap - no matter how secured and safe to place the tray into the gap, how many people will be skeptical of it? Who might be afraid that it might just give way? Do people have a general dislike of eating from a tray? Using this innovation design means every diner will need to have a tray. You buy a cup of coffee, you need one tray. If not, how else could you place your cup on a table with a hole? How many more trays does a food court need to have now? And will it really makes clearing tables faster? If you look at a food court operations, you will notice that most of them adopt this system. A cleaner will push a trolley and clear the dishes and wipe the table as and when he sees them - by throwing the leftover into a trash bag, tray on one side, then separating the cutlery and stacking up the bowls and plates according to shapes and sizes. They will then bring them to a collection point. Now all diners have to eat from the tray. While this may reduce spillage (yet to be confirmed) and minimize the need for cleaners to wipe the tables, this also means the cleaners have more things to clear, that is the trays. In the past, perhaps a person buying a cup of coffee wouldn't need to carry a tray. Now he has to use one. A woman may buy food from a stall and just carry the plate of food because it's easier. Now she has to place it on a tray. If the students were thinking of just clearing the whole tray, then it may be faster. But does it mean walking to and fro the collection point as each cleaner would be able to clear two trays at the most at any one time. Won't it be more tiring for the cleaners? If the cleaners are still separating the utensils and dishes like before, it creates additional work as there are now more trays to be collected. More importantly, some of these cleaners are elderly and slower in their movements. Does the innovation design makes it easier for them to do their work or make them work faster? Why would they want to work faster? Even if they want to work faster, can they? As a food court owner, would you spend money on getting new tables with holes on it? Would you spend money to make holes on your existing ones? When you think of innovation design, do you think of the people who will be using it? Will they use it? Why would they use it? What will make them change instead of staying status quo? Does it really make it better as what you think? How they behave? What's their habits and fears? When you adopt an idea from a different situation or industry, do you see why and how the idea works in that particular situation? What are the requirements and conditions required to make it works? Are there any special requirements or conditions? |
AuthorOutrageous Marketing Archives
May 2020
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