A basic analysis of employee satisfaction and production planning by introducing service robot in a restaurant

Abstract

In this paper, we perform a basic analysis on employee satisfaction and production planning by introducing a service robot which delivers dishes in restaurant service. As an example of a service robot introduced in a Japanese restaurant, we focus on the pantry staff, kitchen staff, and customer service staff, as well as production planning that individual employees implicitly plan and update in their heads. The service robots are used to deliver the dishes prepared at the kitchen to the customer service floor, where the worker specifies the destination and transports the dishes while patroling the restaurant. And the robots also play the role of transporting the finished dishes to the washing place. By analyzing the productivity and employee satisfaction before and after the introduction of the service robots into the categories of serving, cooking area, and customer service, how employees can identify and coordinate work between humans and machines and change process design. It is considered whether the staffs are adapting, and how they understand and respond to their own work and operational improvements with the introduction of robots. From December 2019 to January 2020, an analysis was conducted based on the results of employee questionnaires and interviews conducted at a restaurant.