Sponsored by Checkit
If there’s one superpower restaurant managers could really use, it’s ubiquity. Supervising multiple employees at multiple operations simultaneously would increase consistency and profits while slashing mistakes and loss.
Thankfully, advances in business management software for restaurants have made that a reality, although on a virtual level with Checkit.
Checkit is a business management software that works with a combination of handheld, internet-enabled devices and equipment performance sensors to generate information about an entire restaurant operation and transmit it to the cloud. From that database, restaurant managers in a corporate system can monitor all essential activities via a shared dashboard. That 10,000-foot view allows them to recognize and correct problems immediately, no matter where they are. Among key data tracked 24/7 by Checkit:
- Employee performance.
- Correct completion of tasks.
- Temperatures of food, refrigeration and heat sources to support compliance plans.
- Delivery and drop-off timelines.
- Compliance check-offs.
- Labor information ... and more.
According to Checkit’s Vice President of Americas, German Casillas, the software eliminates paper-and-pen checklists that can’t provide real-time data and make historical data searches tedious.
“Think about paper reporting and finding information,” Casillas says. “Think about the effort required to pull the data for a specific month, put that into a spreadsheet and analyze it. Checkit allows you to do all that on the cloud immediately, wherever you are.”
Take a memo, please
In operations utilizing Checkit, employees use a handheld mobile device called a Memo to review daily tasks, outline job instructions and check off items when completed. As tasks — such as recipe production, inventory, order receiving, etc. — are performed, Checkit evaluates an employee’s progress based on programmed procedures and flags concerns. If the employee can’t correct the error, the system requests a supervisor to advise a remedy.
Memos also utilize digital temperature probes to relay real-time food temperatures to the cloud and ensure all HACCP data is recorded automatically.
Memo’s prompting feature gives employees reminders to begin or end tasks, such as guest restroom checks or moving items from a freezer to a refrigerator for proper thawing. Few businesses are as detail-oriented as restaurants, Casillas says, so some friendly memory jogging is helpful.
In a multiunit restaurant environment where “you’ve got a lot of people performing very different tasks at different sites all at once,” Casillas says, “it’s impossible to have one person cover all that. This system allows you to see what’s going on everywhere at once.”
Restaurant technology consultant Toby Malbec envisions the use of operational intelligence (OI) software such as Checkit as the future for the restaurant industry.
“All that data we’ve gathered for years can now be used to help us make better decisions about how we operate our businesses,” says Malbec, managing director at ConStrata Tech Consulting. “When you can connect all these devices to the cloud to monitor so many areas of your business, that’s a huge advantage.”
An eye on the equipment
Foodservice equipment is becoming increasingly technological, Casillas says, which is especially useful to business management systems. Refrigeration and oven temperatures can be monitored 24/7 to ensure operating temperatures are correct, as well as analyze more precise details such as peak usage and ideal usage. Those details help operators direct employees to use some equipment differently (opening walk-in doors less) while better forecasting maintenance cycles.
“If a refrigerator isn’t running properly, or the door is opened too often, or the food temperature is above 45 degrees Fahrenheit too long, it will suggest that food needs to get thrown away and that a unit might need service,” Casillas says. “When you’re tracking refrigerators, ovens and smokers that closely, you’re aware of whether you need maintenance now or to plan for it in the future.”
Always ready for an audit
According to the Checkit eBook, “Breaking the Paper Chain: Digital Approaches to Boosting Restaurant Operations Management,” eliminating pen-and-paper tracking is notably helpful in the event of an audit where paper “records are rarely accessible to group management teams.... It is not uncommon to find a disorderly amalgamation of paper records that are incomplete and unreliable.”
Those are big problems, says Casillas, in a routine check performed by that restaurant company’s auditors, and especially under the scrutiny of local health authorities following up on a food poisoning claim.
“When it’s on the cloud, that data is right there and ready to use, able to be configured any way you want it,” Casillas says. “In a paperless world you can plug in any date requested and pinpoint the exact area of concern.”
Labor assistance
Casillas believes cloud-based business management tools such as Checkit will become more vital as labor costs rise and skilled labor supplies shrink. Working smarter with fewer employees necessitates efficiency gained only through better operations management. Such tools will save managers time on training, he says, because they reinforce tasks and instructions automatically and with such precision. Prompting through Checkit Memos, he adds, allows them to be virtually everywhere at once.
“This makes the lives of middle management so much easier,” Casillas says. “When their jobs are easier, the jobs of the people they manage and those they answer to are easier, too.”
To learn more about Checkit, click here to request a contact or download our white paper “Breaking the Paper Chain: Digital Approaches to Boosting Restaurant Operations Management,” by clicking here.