An application designed for use in conferences, expositions, and corporate restaurants that allows ordering of meals and beverages available on a customizable menu, produces a unique order number and facilitates pickup without waiting in queues.
Devoxx and Coffee
The coffee of Devoxx Athens 2024 was proudly sponsored by the/experts – Greece. Devoxx is the most prestigious meeting of Java developers (and neighboring disciplines) across Europe, welcoming thousands of participants. After finalizing the agreement with the organizers, we realized that the number of people queuing for a cup of coffee during the breaks between sessions was expected to be high, and so was the likelihood of missing the first minutes of your preferred technical session. At the same time, the baristas preparing the coffee needed to track the number of coffees prepared during the day to manage the supply of the next day more accurately. With these challenges in mind, an idea was born:
the development of a custom, in-house application to facilitate the process of coffee ordering during Devoxx.
The problem was clearly defined: during the 4 coffee breaks of every conference day, about 600 people in total would rush for a warm cup of coffee. The baristas, however, only two! Thus, a queue was quickly formed with people waiting to arrive at the stand and request the type of coffee they preferred. The two baristas then had to quickly coordinate who would prepare each order from memory.
Efficient Coffee Ordering
The tech team of the/experts designed and implemented a simple cloud application to address the above problem. The application consisted of two views for the two roles.
- The conference participants needed to quickly scan a QR code with] their mobile phone camera and select the desired coffee by filling in a simple form with the type of coffee, a nickname, and an email address to receive a notification with a unique order number.
- The barista, who needed a clear overview of the pending requests, take the oldest one on the list and mark it as completed when ready, while calling out the respective nickname for pick-up.
Outcome
The advantages of the solution were immediately clear, starting on the first morning of the conference. Conference participants would use the QR code and walk away from the coffee stand until they were notified by email that the coffee was ready, or they would hear their ‘nickname’ announced by the barista.
Thus, there was no queuing in front of the coffee stand. Meanwhile, the two baristas could sync much faster by simply taking on an order individually, looking at the type of coffee they needed to prepare on the screen of a tablet, and marking the order as completed.
Furthermore, the efficiency of the baristas increased since they relied on the tablet to track the orders. They could also accurately track the consumption at the end of the day and replenish the coffee bean packages for the next day.
New features are already being planned by the development team, allowing for broader adoption of the application in different contexts, such as expositions, malls, and company restaurants. These new features include customizable menus for food and drinks, and pre-order functionality.
Open to help
Is your organization trying to streamline the ordering process, too?
Let us tailor this solution to perfectly fit your business, enhancing efficiency and delivering a seamless experience for your customers. Contact us today to get started!
