Made Order Advisor scanning barcodes as seen from behind the restaurant counter.

Customer Side Demo

Made Order Advisor displaying Order Numbers as seen from the customer waiting area.

Order Numbers for customer orders that are ready to collect are displayed on large displays in the Customer Service Area. Input Methods available are Barcode Scan, Touchscreen Keypad and via a BizKiwi AutoScan device reading Order Number printed to a POS printer. Counters show employees the time elapsed since orders were ready for customers to collect. Colour coding denotes urgency for managing QSC and KPI scores.

Project Date: 2015
Client: McDonald's Queenstown
Category: Touchscreen Apps

The AutoScan device for use with the Made Order Advisor system.

The AutoScan is a datastream parser device used to digitally extract Order Numbers from Pick Slips as they are printed to a POS printer. When connected to the Made Order Advisor the order numbers appear on a display in the Customer Service Area. The Made Order Advisor is a system for cafes and Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) that enables notification of customers when their orders have become ready to be collected.

AutoScan vs No AutoScan for the Made Order Advisor. (Adobe PDF)

Introduction
The AutoScan, or Serial Port Monitor, is an Arduino-based device capable of monitoring and non-invasively intercepting data sent between a PC and a thermal printer connected via RS-232 serial cable. The device firmware parses intercepted text data for preset keywords to locate positioning of text characters of interest. Successful parsing and reading triggers writing of data to an LCD module and the USB port which connects the device to a second PC as USB host.

Motivation
The Serial Port Monitor was originally designed as a hardware addon improvement to the Made Order Advisor for automating the previously manual process of Pick Slip barcode scanning when orders are completed. However, the device has other potential applications, such data collection as part of a customer loyalty programme. Automated monitoring of the content of data sent to printers has a wide range of potential applications in Quick Service Restaurants and many other customer service and other industries.

Requirements
The objective of this project was to build a Serial Port Monitor device capable of monitoring and non-invasively intercepting data sent between a PC and an RS-232 connected thermal printer. The device firmware is required to parse intercepted text data for keywords and trigger events by writing data to a USB port connecting the device to a PC as the USB host.

Engineering AutoScan (Adobe PDF)

Project Final Report (Adobe PDF)