McDonald’s said it understands the frustrations and has a team to working on it. The company said it is introducing a variety of solutions including new training for crew members and regular maintenance checkups.
It also has tried to add levity to the situation. “We have a joke about our soft serve machine but are worried it won’t work," McDonald’s tweeted last year.
The National Owners Association, a group of franchisees, doesn’t find it funny. “We are tired of being the butt of late night jokes. So are our customers and crews,” the group grumped in a May message to owners.
Two years ago, a firm called Kytch Inc., started by two accountants turned frozen-yogurt-machine inventors, began offering a device to mount on the ice cream machines to alert owners about a breakdown. The device sends out real-time text and email alerts that can prevent damage to machines, the company says.
One selling point: Its warnings are in clear English. The Taylor machines’ own user messages, according to Kytch, are on the order of: “ERROR: XSndhUIF LHPR>45F 1HR LPROD too VISC."
Taylor said an explanation of error codes is in machine manuals. “There is no reason for us to purposely design our equipment to be confusing or hard to repair or hurt our operators,” the Taylor representative said.
At the peak, McDonald’s owners in 30 states used Kytch’s breakdown-spotter, the startup company says. McDonald’s told franchisees late last year the devices aren’t sanctioned and said they potentially pose a safety hazard, which Kytch denies. McDonald’s said it is developing its own smart device for the shake machines.
“Nothing is more important to us than delivering on our high standards for food quality and safety,” the chain said, “which is why we work with fully vetted partners that can reliably provide safe solutions at scale.”
Kytch fired back in May with a lawsuit accusing Taylor, a repair company authorized to work on Taylor machines and a McDonald’s franchisee of conspiring to replicate Kytch’s technology. The complaint, which is pending, alleged that Taylor gained access to Kytch’s device after the franchisee brought his machine to the repair company with the device mounted on it.
“This is a case about corporate espionage and the extreme steps one manufacturer has taken to conceal and protect a multimillion-dollar repair racket,” attorneys for Kytch wrote in the complaint in California Superior Court in Alameda County.
Taylor denied it had a copy of Kytch’s device or sought to steal technology, saying in a court filing: “This is a case of a hacker—Kytch—incredibly accusing the hacked—Taylor—of theft.”
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mcdonalds-mcflurry-machine-is-broken-again-now-the-ftc-is-on-it-11630522266
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