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HotSchedules, Kitchen Brains partner on IoT integration strategy

HotSchedules has partnered with Kitchen Brains to bring its SCK Quality Production Manager together with the HotSchedules IoT platform.

March 30, 2016

HotSchedules, a provider of cloud-based mobile technology for the restaurant and hospitality industries, has partnered with Kitchen Brains to bring its SCK Quality Production Manager together with the HotSchedules Internet of Things platform. Kitchen Brains' QPM application integrates cooking platforms such as fryers and ovens with real-time point-of-sale data. The integration plans, directs and reports cooking instructions to ensure food is always hot, fresh and available for guests. The IoT platform will eliminate the complexity and costs of connecting QPM to other restaurant technologies especially POS systems, according to a company press release.   

QPM is part the Kitchen Brains Genius Suite, a collection of technologies that connect front and back-of-house restaurant systems with all aspects of food production and facility management, creating an intelligent commercial kitchen. QPM monitors real-time and historical sales to dynamically coach the kitchen crew on what to cook, when to cook it, how much to cook, and when to discard expired product. Typically, QPM increases a restaurant's fresh product scores from 50 to 60 percent to 95 percent and product availability from 60 to 70 percent to above 90 percent. Because product is tracked from cook to holding to waste, QPM can calculate inventory changes and quality metrics by product and by shift.

By connecting Kitchen Brains QPM with the HotSchedules IoT platform, POS solutions and cooking equipment will eliminate traditional API complexities while allowing restaurants to maximize their IT investments. Restaurants will be able increase speed-of-service, improve food quality and reduce wastage while cutting IT costs.

The HotSchedules IoT platform will collect QPM's data on food quality, wastage, inventory consumption, speed of service, and savings. From the cloud, this data can be delivered to any analytics solution, including HotSchedules Reveal, an app that provides actionable insights for hospitality businesses on a smartphone, tablet or browser. The data can also be linked to HotSchedules Inventory, a mobile application that enables restaurants to efficiently track and manage inventory and queue orders for products that are below ideal quantities.

Whereas restaurants must normally create one-to-one integrations between each application and technology they use, the IoT Platform becomes a hub for all integrations. For example, if 10 restaurant technologies would normally call for 45 separate integrations, the HotSchedules IoT Platform reduces the number to 10. If one technology is replaced (e.g. a new POS system or fryer), it can be connected to the IoT Platform without affecting the other integrations.

In addition, developers can build new integrations and applications for the HotSchedules IoT platform. Because the platform centralizes all in-store, near-store and above-store data in the cloud, any HotSchedules app or third-party app connected to the platform can access that data. This enables developers to create applications much faster and less expensively than normal.  

"No matter what forecasting software you use, real-time sales data is the key to validating your predictions and adapting to new conditions. Real-time sales data is essential for QPM to deliver precise production management.  That is why partnering with HotSchedules will be valuable to our customers," said Mario Ceste, CEO at Kitchen Brains. "The IoT platform ensures you can connect QPM with any POS system, analytics solution or forecasting software. It's a cost-efficient and innovative approach to integrating smart kitchen technologies and leveraging the millions of IoT capable devices we have installed in restaurant appliances during the last 20 years."