Digital Twin: improve restaurant performance and customer experience

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Data and algorithms in hospitality technology
Data analysis and algorithms used for better forecasting in hospitality businesses

How do extreme changes in demand affect your restaurant? And what happens when you change your product offering? 

How can you achieve the optimal wait time? 

How much food do you need to defrost to meet demand? 

How many employees do you need to achieve the desired service levels? And how should tasks be assigned for the different levels of demand? 

How many teams do you need to prepare? And during peak times? 

These are just some of the critical questions that hospitality owners ask themselves. They arise on a daily basis and directly affect your results. You'd need to be a fortune-teller to answer them most of the time, an ability most of us dream of possessing. Even so, being able to improve our forecasting and be better prepared for changeable scenarios can make a huge difference. 

Digitalisation and data analysis provide us with invaluable information about our businesses. It's certainly a step in the right direction. Today, however, many complex questions remain unanswered. 

In 2019, MAPAL began a collaboration with Carlos III University of Madrid to provide market-leading technologies for the hospitality sector and answer some of these pressing questions. The cutting-edge tech sectors and their use of the latest technology have been in the spotlight from the beginning.  

The car and aerospace industry, for example, may seem worlds apart from hospitality. But behind these industries are products and designs that aim to optimise resources, constantly improve, and become resilient to any situation to offer customers the highest quality and safety. This passion for innovation and the pursuit of excellent results, along with their analysis and design methods, has given us access to tools used by more technologically advanced sectors and apply them to our beloved yet complex hospitality industry. 

So, on that note, we’re pleased to present Digital Twin for restaurants and hospitality businesses. Driven by MAPAL Data Labs, this project is based on the simulation of real systems. It provides hospitality professionals like you with a replica of your restaurants and establishments in a digital environment, where you can test thousands of different scenarios in record time. This helps you make better decisions and reduce costs, risks, and analysis time. 

Until now, only the largest players have had access to this technology due to the huge investment this type of project demands. At MAPAL, however, we are constantly working to reduce and adapt these costs so that everyone can benefit from this technology, from large corporations to SMEs. And the Data Labs team also takes care of the complex use and development, so all you have to worry about is improving your business. 

Characteristics

In a digital restaurant, you can test all kinds of variations to create the most relevant scenarios for your business. You'll then be able to predict and analyse inefficiencies more accurately and find the best ways to resolve them. This gives you total flexibility to see how changing different aspects would impact your business and a virtual setting. 

  • Sales channels 
  • Demand and supply of products 
  • Job positions and tasks 
  • Processes and production capacity 
  • Available equipment and stock 

On top of that, a digital environment can track any important events that affect your business. As a result, you can focus on the most critical parameters and control their impact. 

  • Wait times 
  • KPIs 
  • Net sales 
  • Successful orders 
  • Cost and use of resources 
  • Stock levels 
  • Lost customers 
Manager analysing data to improve his hospitality business
Restaurant manager analysing data to improve the performance of his business

Applications

We have now found a range of uses for this new tool while also developing new applications with our customers. 

Workforce: working on defining standards and workforce productivity. 

Store design and customer experience: projecting restaurant layout and team sizes to satisfy business needs better. 

Daily and contingency plans: analyse historical data to reveal actual performance and strengthen weak points. 

Operations and production: working on operational standards to improve restaurant service and profit margins. 

Product offering: analyse how offering specific products affect production lines. 

How can Digital Twin help your business?

Digital Twin is an innovative solution designed to improve your restaurant’s overall performance and the customer experience at the same time. Its benefits are as broad as the ways it can be applied, but there are three key areas where you’ll see significant improvements: 

  • Productivity 
  • Your P&L 
  • Quality of service 

You’ll also be able to develop contingency plans for a whole range of scenarios and make much better use of resources, reduce everyday uncertainties and consequently improve the well-being of your business.

A crucial step towards improvement

In summary, better forecasting and preparation in your day-to-day business is a fundamental and differentiating factor in improving productivity. Staying in tune with your demand and real business needs is vital to achieving this. Active planning and designing in line with the most efficient models are fundamental to taking your business to the highest level. 

Digitalisation has opened many doors to efficiency. And in a very short time, those businesses that have taken this revolutionary digital leap will now have undoubtedly become the most attractive and competitive market. Even so, there are still many questions to be answered. So, we must keep exploring the challenges hospitality faces and finding solutions for them in the not-too-distant future. At MAPAL, we firmly believe in Digital Twin and that it will truly make a difference to our industry.

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