App Design + Engineering - Systems Optimization

One of LA’s major ghost kitchens was gearing up for full operation when just months into launch the pandemic hit. They were about to experience the biggest boom in business that any start up has ever seen in the first few months of operation due to millions of people staying home and ordering food instead of going out. Inundated with orders, the building was a zoo, bustling with workers trying to coordinate food orders coming out of 50 kitchens to their Corresponding delivery drivers.

They had a major problem, 1000s of orders flowing out of the facility from various restaurants who were renting kitchens for their delivery business had to be somehow coordinated with the delivery drivers come to pick them up. 100a of drivers would be standing around asking every employee they could find if their order was ready yet and no one really knew. Meanwhile 100s of orders of food would be stacking up on the staging shelves while waiting for an employee to find the corresponding driver and give them the order. At first it was okay with only a couple orders and drivers at a time waiting to find each other… but as the kitchens filled up to capacity, it quickly became unmanageable, even with 5-6 employees working. Everyone had to be aware of all the packages and drivers to possibly match them up. There had to be a better way. We consulted with Colony to come up with a solution.

We came up with an app-run system of contactless coordination, using a QR code on the outside of the building for the drivers to easily check in and see if their order was available for pick up yet. This was key as COVID kicked in and we wanted to keep all the drivers outside the building until they were sure their order was ready for pickup. Employees now tracked all the orders stacking on the staging shelves by checking them off in the app and the system would send them an automated text notification to the driver that their order was ready and they could come inside to pick it up. This was key in avoiding a giant room packed full of drivers and employees trying to manually coordinate deliveries during a pandemic in one of the largest cities. This system also took care of all the coordination, in one click, everyone could see that an order or a driver was ready, instead of all employees trying separately to track in their heads which orders and which drivers were present or not.

As a fortuitous result of this new system, the ghost kitchen was now able to actually collect data on the amount of orders, and from which kitchens, were flowing out of their facility. This is data that they did not have before since they were not affiliated with the delivery apps.

Result:

Smoothly running, contactless order pick ups during a global pandemic. Bonus data collection.