Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Innovations 2009 at Persistent Systems, Pune

Check out Innovations 2009:



Innovations is an yearly conference that tries to showcase the best innovations in any field in India. It is organized by the IIT Bombay Alumni Association of Pune and will be held on January 10 and 11, 2009 at Persistent Systems, Pune. The last date for submissions is 30th September, so if you have done something innovative, you should consider nominating yourself.PuneTech, Sep 2008



Read the whole article for more details.

[Jugaad #2] CaptainPad: Automated restaurant order processing

Product Description  CaptainPad: Automated restaurant order processing
Month/Year of Release 2007
Inventor Wings iNet Technologies, Pune, India
Source Credits PuneTech Website
Estimated Cost Rs. 2.5lakhs - Rs. 6lakhs (as per [1])
Problem Domain Food and Hospitality 
Objectives 
To automate restaurant order processing from order taking to preparation to billing.
Description
The CaptainPad is a clever use of technology to solve a very practical problem. It provides an elegant solution to the conventional problem of restaurant order taking.  In a typical restaurant, the food order is taken by a Captain and then delivered to the waiter who takes it to a kitchen or bar or pantry. Billing is then done separately. There is a chance of error at every possible stage in the process ultimately leading to customer dissatisfaction. It is manually intensive and time consuming.  The process also wastes a lot of valuable time which leads to longer service times for customers.
The CaptainPad is a smart technological solution to automate this process and provide an easy to use interface for everybody from Captain to the Chef to the Biller.  With the CaptainPad, the whole process is literally controlled from a wireless touchpad handheld. With all the menu loaded on the device, the captain has to just push right buttons to place an order for a table. The order is then wirelesslessly transmitted to a server which then pushes it out to the respective departments for readying the order. The waiters are then informed as soon as the order is ready for serving. Simulataneously, the bill for the customer keeps updating and is readily delivered when the customer is ready to pay. Thus the whole system now functions more effectively and smootly.  To achieve all of this , the CaptainPad solution consists of the following: 
  • Wireless touch screens handhelds like a Palm
  • A fewPCs to display the orders at the Kitchen and to the waiters.
  • Printers for printing the order tickets at the kitchen.
  • An order management software running on a server.
  • Wireless routers to provide infrastructure to the whole system.
Photographs/Diagrams

Credits : Wings iNet webpage.

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