Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Driverless pizza ovens

You order a pizza from your local pizzeria and a half hour later, a driverless car pulls up in front of your door and pings you to come out and pick up your pizza.  You go to the car, scan a code from your phone and a small door opens revealing your pizza box.  We all know this is bound to happen, or already happening in certain cities.



On a busy day, it can take up to a half hour for a pizza to be prepared and then transportation time is added on top of that.  This could easily add up to almost an hour, depending on how far you live from a pizzeria.  In general, a pizza takes about 3-4 minutes to prepare and 8-10 mins to bake.  Once baked, it tastes its best if consumed immediately.  Depending on the contents of the pizza, it starts to age and get soggy by the minute.

This is where the driverless oven comes into picture.

A pizzeria gets its order.  The order contains not only the products purchased, but also the address to be delivered to.  Software can easily categorize orders based on the product as well as distance to be transported.  For those orders within closer reaches, the pizza can be baked in the store and loaded for delivery.  For those orders which have a larger travel time, the chef can prepare the pizza and load it into the delivery vehicle.  The pizza is baked in the vehicle's oven, and packaged once fully baked and readied for delivery automatically.  This would need an automated vehicle with an automated pizza oven inside it.  The oven could be designed to handle several pizzas which will be baked based on the distance to the destination.  Material handling robots would package the pizzas as they are cooked.  The vehicle decides when to start baking depending on the distance as well as traffic conditions.

This optimizes the baking and delivery of the pizza.  Delivering fresh baked pizzas would become a reality.  This can also free up the store over to service in-store customers.
PC: Dominos Pizza