POS Innovations: Taking Orders

Wendy’s data-management software hooked to the point-of-sale system eases purchasing and frees up managers’ time.

By David Farkas, Senior Editor -- Chain Leader, 10/1/2007

Transactions at a busy Wendy’s unit are automatically calculated and sent to a data-processing center. An assistant manager in a franchised Wendy’s in Columbus, Ohio, uses reporting software linked to the unit’s point-of-sale system to send an order to the chain’s distribution center. Another Wendy’s franchisee developed the program and now markets it to fast-food operators. << Table of Contents

In the early 1990s, Cedar Enterprises, a longtime Wendy’s franchisee with 55 restaurants in Las Vegas and San Antonio, created a proprietary reporting system that helped the store managers make timely, informed decisions about their restaurants. The program was the brainchild of Jim Karam, a son of the owner who had been trained in technical documentation.

Karam’s system, which soon replaced the company’s Panasonic back-office program, relieved unit managers of much computer work by polling data and sending them to Cedar’s Columbus, Ohio, headquarters. There, technicians made sure the data was "clean" before applying detailed business logic—labor scheduling, recipes, algorithms—and generating a report.

The process freed up managers to do what they do best: use information to run more profitable restaurants instead of generating (and sometimes corrupting, Karam notes) data themselves. "A manager has a lot on his plate. To add technical computer skills to that makes the job even more cumbersome," Karam offers.

Software For Sale

Today, Karam sells his data-management software under the name Syrus Restaurant Information Services to other Wendy’s and other QSR franchisees. Among his customers is a former Wendy’s operations executive, Gary Rozanczyk, now a six-unit Wendy’s franchisee in Greater Columbus.

Rozanczyk recently added an upgraded version of Syrus’ purchasing software to his POS system. He admits he doesn’t understand "every nuance" of the new, fully integrated package that links his POS system to back-office software and Wendy’s distribution center.

But he is impressed by the ease with which unit managers can forecast sales and purchases, thus lowering food cost by a quarter to one-half percent. "Data history drives the whole program," he explains. "[Ordering] can be adjusted, for example, if a holiday is coming up, and the adjustments are made by a single key stroke."

The program also automatically adjusts for changes that the franchisor makes in products, ingredients or packaging. "The inventory system we had before was mostly general-manager controlled. This way, it is controlled strictly by Syrus," Rozanczyk says.

Learning How

At first, store managers feared the new software because it required them to learn a new system. Rozanczyk estimates it takes a veteran manager about two weeks to "feel entirely comfortable with it."

Not for General Manager Ed McNeely, who operates a busy Wendy’s restaurant near a mall in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna. "It took me about a week," he says.

McNeely, who has been managing fast-food restaurants for 30 years, recently trained an assistant manager on the new online ordering system. "He’s done three orders already," he says. "It’s really user friendly."

McNeely boasts his unit is one of the busiest in Greater Columbus, with orders typically amounting to more than 200 pieces three times a week. "We’re one of the big dogs," he chuckles.

"Go back 15 years ago," McNeely recalls. "Purchasing was a very tedious job. You walked around with clipboard. You didn’t know what was coming in, and you couldn’t pre-order anything. It took two hours to three hours to put an order in."

Today, he adds, an online order takes less than an hour. His newly trained assistant manager accomplished the task in roughly the same time.

McNeely believes the purchasing system will easily accommodate ordering Wendy’s new breakfast items, which Rozanczyk has yet to introduce in his units.

"I would have to be trained on case size and shelf life, but it’s not a big issue. Product increase on breakfast isn’t that tremendous, though maybe some things will be different cups and lids," McNeely muses. "But it won’t be a major boggle."