5 reasons why you need a Kitchen Display System

Ensuring no more lost orders, reducing the food-wasting, and optimizing the kitchen workflows are just the top-of-mind advantages of using the Kitchen Display System (KDS). 

According to the Emergen Research report, the food tech market size is expected to reach a value of 342.52 billion by 2027. While the food delivery segment occupies the largest share of the market (45.4%), there are multiple other technologies adopted to meet the market requirements. 

Among these, the authors of the report name the software that enables the companies to save resources, reduce spending and minimize food wasting. This description perfectly fits the Kitchen Display System (KDS) technology. 

What is the Kitchen Display System (KDS)?

Kitchen Display System is a digital system connected with screens (usual touchscreens) that replaces the spoken or pen-and-paper communication between the kitchen and the dining space. 

Despite being called a “display system” the core is not in the screens, but in the digital solutions that combine the data and ensure the smooth workflow in the restaurant. Considering that, a modern and sophisticated KDS is more a software suite than a single piece of software. 

How KDS supports the restaurant operations

In the small-scale operations of a single restaurant working on a local market with only a dining room and telephone orders to manage, the full-scale KDS is not necessary to operate. The challenges come when the business grows and may include: 

• Multiple channels to manage – with several integrators on the market like Uber Eats or Glovo the restaurant may need to manage several tablets, constantly beeping with notifications. For 59% of us restaurant owners one of the key business goals is to integrate the online and offline channels, and doing so without digital tools results in chaos. 
• Challenging logistics with delivery – with several restaurants having their own workload and resources to manage, the company may find itself managing the remote deliveries in a suboptimal way, forcing the overworked restaurants to prepare meals or choosing the location with the inconvenient route to the customer. 
• Challenging order queuing – the company may also find itself confused with the optimal way to prepare a particular meal in the whole queue of incoming orders. For example, the fires are prepared swiftly, while a burger needs to be grilled for a longer time, and the customer expects to get his or her order as soon as possible. 
• Staff management – the specialists working for the restaurant may feel overwhelmed or lost with the stream of cards with orders. Also, it is easy to set wrong priorities to order, make a mistake or get confused

Considering the challenges before, the KDS system is a perfect pick for developing restaurants, where the workload starts to overwhelm the staff and management. A sophisticated and modern system like Ordering Stack comes with multiple advantages that come from solving problems enlisted above: 

No delay in order taking

The Kitchen Display System automatically queues the orders and optimally manages them. Ordering Stack for example splits the orders depending on the particular kitchen device and comes with the optimal way to prepare the meal in a step-by-step manner. 

According to the Deloitte data, only 25% of customers are willing to wait longer than 30 minutes for their food. The rest will consider waiting that long a poor customer experience. 

By that, the meal will be fresh and ready to be taken as soon as possible, regardless of the workload and types of orders on the go. 

No missing orders

The Kitchen Display System, has a direct connection with the Point of Sales (POS) system in the restaurant, automatically collecting the incoming orders. With the single database of orders, there is no way for the particular order to be lost – no matter if it has come from the integrator service, online platform, or the dining room. 

The Deloitte-provided hint on 54% of customers willing to order from automated kitchens goes from the fat, that the automation increases the efficiency.

Integrating orders from multiple sources

As mentioned above, the KDS system aims to streamline all orders coming from different sources and set them in a priority-wise queue. 

Things get more complicated when there are multiple different sources. The Deloitte study shows that 64% of customers are eager to order via QR code, 57% prefer the app and 40% owned the website of the restaurant. 

By connecting with integrators via API and having the digital ordering channel integrated by default, the KDS system makes the order management fully automated, to the point of no-human-interaction-needed. 

Better organization in the kitchen

The kitchen display system provides the staff with information on the exact time and amount of products to be used. Also, it ensures that the order will be delivered on time. The KDS system reduces the stress and pressure on the staff by taking the burden of decision-making from them.

The kitchen staff can be the subject of the “decision fatigue as well as office clerks and CEOs do. According to The Medical News Today, decision fatigue is basically the person’s ability to make the decisions and the capacity to do so. With too many decisions to make – both greater and smaller ones, one finishes the mental capacity. 

Communication and reports 

Last but not least, the KDS system stores all the data regarding the resources used, the orders, the payments, and anything else that can be gathered from the systems it is integrated with. By that, the data can be further processed and used to optimize the company’s operations. By that, all the expenses and wasting can be reduced by sticking to the operational routines and trends that used to be obscured by the unclear data. 

Summary

Kitchen Display System becomes a must for the restaurant chain, delivering both savings and optimizations. It is one of these silent business heroes that are unseen by the customers yet deliver a huge boost for profitability. 

If you wish to talk more about the ways the KDS can support your company, don’t hesitate to contact us now!