Pizza Hut, as well as a number of other pizza delivery and fast food
operations, including Domino's, use the QuikOrder
system[http://www.quikorder.com/company/], which runs on Intersystems'
Cache' database.[http://www.e-dbms.com/]
I've found a few articles which state that QuikOrder runs on WinNT -
they all reference Domino's and were apparently written prior to Pizza
Hut contracting with them:
[http://www.mulcoms.com.au/marathon_facts.html]
[http://www.internetweek.com/ebizapps01/ebiz050701.htm]
[http://www.internetweek.com/infrastructure/infra091800-1.htm]
(QuickOrder is named as the copyright holder on the Pizza Hut online
ordering page, so that's where I started.)
This article explains how the QuikOrder system works (though it
references Domino's, which uses the same technology):
"Once the delivery information and order entry is completed, it is
transmitted to the QuikOrder, Inc., server computer system via the
Internet. The server then sends the order to the participating
Domino's store that serves the customer's address. An e-mail
confirmation with estimated delivery time is sent to the customer to
inform them that the Domino's store has received their order."
[http://www.quikorder.com/company/press1b.asp?cpy=1]
QuickOrder's "About" page states that orders are sent to the
fullfilling restaurant within ten minutes.
As noted in the comment below, a long wait is not necessarily the
fault of slow servers or faulty software. Typically, pizza delivery
places are staffed with 1 - 3 telephone personnel, a manager and 3 - 5
delivery drivers. There are periods throughout the day ("rush")
during which such staffing is insufficient to carry out an order from
start to finish in under an hour, even if drivers are carefully routed
to enable them to deliver multiple orders.
From experience in the pizza delivery trade in college (with Domino's!
Yipes!), a pizza can require up to three minutes to assemble
(including stretching the dough, saucing, cheesing, and using the
company approved portions of each topping) and another 8 - 10 minutes
to bake, depending on the number of toppings you ask for. If it takes
a full ten minutes for your order to reach the store and there are 6
orders ahead of yours, it will be a bare minimum of 16 minutes from
the time you place your order until your pizza ever sees the oven, 28
minutes if each of the pies is a large, loaded. And if there are more
than six orders ahead of yours? It further bogs down at the end of
the bake time - if a driver headed to your area isn't right there,
your pizza will sit under the heat lamps until someone comes back in,
sometimes as long at 15 minutes!
If you're ordering during peak hours, you may well fall victim to the
wait that ordering during the rush imposes, no matter how close to
your outlet you live. It's remarkably frustrating that technology
still hasn't helped us figure out a way to get our pizzas a little
faster, isn't it?
Thanks for your inquiry!
Best regards,
missy-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
missy-ga
on
29 Apr 2002 17:17 PDT
Hi hagen!
Procedures for determining the path of the delivery vary from shop to
shop, but typically work like this:
Your shop's delivery area is shown on a large wall map. Each street
is labelled on this map, and sometimes color coded. The map is
divided into sections and numbered, and each driver is assigned one or
two sections that he is responsible for. If it is peak rush time,
drivers passing through one section to get to another may be asked to
drop a pie on the way, to help keep delivery times down.
When an order is up, one of the phone people or the manager (if he's
not on the make line or pulling pizzas from the oven) will act as a
router, looking at destinations for other pies to determine if any can
be grouped together and sent with the same driver. If several can be
taken out at once, the router will instruct the driver as to which one
to deliver first - usually the closest pie first *unless* the one
furthest away is an older order. For instance, if the pie out in
sector 3 was called in 22 minutes ago, but the pie going to sector 1,
where your shop is located is only 16 minutes old, the driver will be
instructed to deliver the pie in sector 3 first, even though sector 1
is closer. (I'm sure this sounds ridiculously complicated, but it
actually makes sense when you're doing it!)
Sometimes, a pie will come up for a driver who is currently out on a
run, and no one is passing through his sector to make the delivery.
Under the lamps it goes to wait for the driver - and that's probably
your pie, five minutes from you, waiting for your wayward driver to
come back. :)
Sometimes the router blows his cool and sends the wrong pie out with
the wrong driver...and you end up with late pizza, mad customer and
sullen driver.
There are enough things that can influence the entire pizza delivery
system, that it almost makes one wish for a replicator!
Hope this explains things for you!
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