In a recent article by David Schepp that appeared in the Daily Finance by AOL entitled, “Coffee perks up July sales at McDonald’s”, he credited the positive performance of McDonald’s to their increase in sales of brewed beverages, mainly premium coffees. McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts can compete with Starbucks and other premium coffee houses because of the advancement of technology in the coffee/espresso markets.

Coffee remains a religious war; in that, the making of espresso/coffee is art vs. science. Most coffee/espresso machine manufacturers have been in the business over a century. These manufacturers from Italy, Switzerland, and Germany (mainly) crafted machines that were meant to be manually operated by artisans with proper skills and training that could craft the perfect cup of coffee. Coffee requires that many variables be taken in to account and adjusted to produce that perfect cup.

To the perfectionist, the coffee aficionado, technology can never replace the artisan but to a person like myself and 90% of the population a good barista can, in fact, tune a more automated coffee machine to produce a consistent almost perfect but maybe not quite, cup of coffee all day long.

Semi-Automatic or the newer Super Automatic espresso/coffee machines are coming into the modern age and taking advantage of science and computer controls. With the advantages provided by the newer technology Dunkin Donuts can produce and very solid, good tasting cup of coffee, espresso or cold coffee drink. Chain restaurants are successful because they can produce a consistent product, no matter where the location. It may not be the perfect meal but it is consistent.

I have interviewed Jerry Leeman formerly from Perk Dynamics, Inc. (www.posstrategies.com), a software company in Oklahoma, that is taking the technology to the next level. They have developed a software package, “AutoPerk™”, that connects the Point of Sale (POS) software directly to the newer Super Automatic coffee/espresso machines to interface with this software. Embedded in the machine is a display to provide drink queue and customer information. Having all the information about the drink and customer visible on the front of the espresso machine allows the barista to focus on preparing the next cup of coffee or add syrup for the next queued drink that the machines are not capable of adding (as far as I have seen).

The AutoPerk™ software also provides load balancing across multiple coffee machines and time-release queue for orders placed in advance. The software also allows the transmission of customer information stored in a loyalty system to be provided to the person serving the brewed beverage. This connection of the POS to the coffee machine will increase efficiency, reduce errors in ordering, reduce labor costs, decrease shrinkage, and increase overall customer satisfaction.