T.E. Raja Simhan

When you’ve ordered Paneer Tikka, you don’t want to settle for Paneer Pakoda, right?

But why does the mix-up happen, at the restaurant? It happens because the ‘master’ (the hotel staff who waits on you at the table) writes the food order in the KOT (kitchen order token) as Paneer Tikka, but the kitchen staff misread the ha ndwriting and dish out the Pakoda, instead.

Ah, well, there’s many a slip between the plate and the palate, you mutter helplessly.

But all these are becoming a thing of the past. Today technology is at hand to ensure that you get just what you ordered

At the air-conditioned hall of Hotel Saravana Bhavan in Mylapore, Chennai, customers can find ‘masters’ attending on them with Bluetooth-enabled Hewlett Packard PDAs (personal digital assistants) along with palm-sized mobile printers that hang out of their jacket pockets.

The food order is taken in the PDA and a print is given from the mobile printer. The waiters get a copy of the order, which is also available in real time to the kitchen for preparing the food item. There are four Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) routers in the hall connected to the kitchen.

In the traditional system, the ‘master’ takes the order in KOT with three copies — one KOT is given to the waiter; the second to the kitchen and the third to the billing section. However, thanks to the PDA and mobile printer, the whole process is making for a paperless environment, says N. Subramania Siva, System Analyst, Hotel Saravana Bhavan, which has 25 branches in India and 21 international franchisees.

The printers used by the staff are from the US-based Zebra Technologies. The Mini Zebra Printer is an economical receipt printer. Each tiny printer is a smart assistant for any mobile receipt printing application, for quick, simple receipts on demand, says Siva.

A zoom-in.

Hotel Saravana Bhavan in Mylapore, located near the famous Kapaleeswar Temple, handles nearly 5,000 customers every day, including 500-1,000 in the air-conditioned hall. Earlier, it used to take five-seven minutes to take the order, but the time has now got reduced to two-three minutes. Also, the customer would spend 25-30 minutes at the table, but this has come down to 15-20 minutes. Technology has helped increase the productivity of employees, who are now accountable for any delay in service. Data is shared quickly right down the chain, from the time of order, to serving of food, to billing, he says.

Earlier, the waiter would first take the order and then instruct the kitchen. But, with the use of technology, the waiter passes on the information to the kitchen in real time. By the time he goes to the kitchen, the order is actually getting prepared, says Siva.

The biggest advantage now is that waiters can attend to customers’ requirements quickly rather than wasting time running between the kitchen and the table. Also, using the PDA, the waiter can now close the table and provide the bill immediately to customers instead of having to collate all the KOTs and then take it to the billing section for a bill. Now, there is no confusion or wrong billing, he says.

Hotel Saravana Bhavan has bought 11 PDAs of Hewlett Packard (each costing Rs 19,000) and 11 mobile printers (each costing Rs 19,000) of Zebra, which provides specialty printing solutions. Zebra’s printers are usually used for barcode applications. However, Zebra customised the application for Hotel Saravana Bhavan. The in-house software team of 11 members at the Hotel developed the application in the PDA. The Hotel plans to extend the mobile technology to other branches in the city, says Siva. On any day, across all its branches, Hotel Saravana Bhavan handles nearly 80,000 customers and the number increases to 1.25 lakh to 1.50 lakh during weekends and holidays. The daily revenue is around Rs 50 lakh, according to Siva.

Ajay Rao, Pre-Sales Manager, Zebra Technologies India, says, besides Saravana Bhavan, companies in varied sectors, such as Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways, SpiceJet, Fame Adlabs and PVR Cinemas have deployed Zebra’s mobile printing solutions to serve customers better and reduce the waiting period in queues at airports, cinemas and restaurants. Zebra Technologies has delivered around 1,000 mobile printers in India. These are across sectors such as retail, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, airlines, hospitality, banking and insurance, says Rao.

There is a huge potential for mobile printers in retail and hospitality where customer satisfaction is of paramount importance, he says. Airlines and entertainment verticals, which need quick print-outs of tickets, too would find them useful. There will be demand for these solutions in virtually every application wherein there is a point-of-interaction with the customer or the need to increase the efficiency of the workforce, says Rao.

raja@thehindu.co.in

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