More than 130 Burger King restaurants in Canada have a standard method of upsizing your order thanks to new point-of-sale (POS) terminals from NCR Corp.
Burger King Corp. has already installed NCR’s Compris food service software, support services and RealPOS 7454 terminals in its more than 600
company-owned restaurants in the U.S. and is wrapping up deployment in its 259 company-locations in Canada, the United Kingdom and Mexico.
The goal of the deployment was to streamline equipment across corporate-owned restaurants around the globe, says Michael Lingswiler, director of technical services with Burger King. “”The drive behind this was standardization. The NCR platform provided the functionality and given where they are in the market are able to provide for future releases.””
One of the benefits to having a standard interface for all restaurants is that changes in the menu or special promotions can be easily linked with the corporation’s back-end systems.
It also makes training employees easier, says Lingswiler. “”NCR is able to provide that training and standardize on that training across all of our regions.””
Brian Sullivan, vice-president of NCR’s Retail Solutions Division for Canada, says simplicity is key in the fast food business, particularly for training purposes. “”Staff turnover is fairly high.””
The Compris software also allows for as much automation as possible when entering orders.
When entering a combination meal, for example, “”The cashier doesn’t have to make the decision,”” says Sullivan.
He says Burger King was particularly interested in replacing the disparate systems across its corporate-owned restaurants with standard equipment.
Durability is also important in these fast-paced environments, says Sullivan, as well as environmental-friendliness. For one thing, these terminals do not have external fan vents, which ensures no elements inside the hardware come in contact with food. “”It’s designed not to overheat,”” he says.
Prior to this, Burger King had a mixture of NCR and non-NCR equipment in their restaurants. Lingswiler says these terminals have a lifecycle of about three years.
While franchise restaurants are responsible for their own POS hardware/software selections, he says they often look to the corporate-owned model for direction.
Lingswiler says Burger King is exploring what new functionalities can be added that will help restaurant operations down the road.
