Efficiency In The Drive Through

It's somewhat amazing just how much effort goes into innovating the fast food industry. In the past, we've seen stories of outsourced order takers (call center so they can handle multiple restaurants at once), a system called "Hyperactive Bob" to better predict demand, and even an automated burger flipper. That last link also discussed order kiosks where fast food customers punched in the order themselves, rather than have the cashier do it. It seems that they're now taking that same concept out to the drive through also. In an effort to speed up the drive through line and making it more accurate, many fast food restaurants are trying to simplify the drive through order menu and show visual confirmations to make sure there are no mistakes. Of course, the article also mentions that realistically, the best way to speed up the whole process is to simply cut items off the menu. Perhaps the folks at In-N-Out might want to reconsider any plans to expand their menu beyond the four "official" items currently listed.