Alliance WebPOS Kitchen monitoring module allows an establishment to keep track of the status of food as they are being ordered, prepared and served to the customers. This is primarily an interface that is placed inside the kitchen or in the bar. The staff can update the status of the incoming orders to reflect its actual stage in the food preparation cycle.
I will give a short walkthrough on how to this work.
Before that, please go through Step by Step Demonstration of Alliance WebPOS and Walkthrough Demo of Alliance WebPOS - Food and Beverage for instruction on how to set up your operation before proceeding with this walkthrough.
Step 1: Setting a Kitchen Station
The first step is to set up a kitchen station. A station can either be placed inside the kitchen (hot) or in the bar (cold). We can configure as many stations as we want.
Kitchen station is configured under each branch. So, let's open the headquarter system and navigate to the branch master.
Select a branch and open its detail. Click kitchen station as shown below.
This will bring up the kitchen station listing for the branch. Let's create a new record by clicking the "New" button. Fill up the items as shown below.
Name - Enter any name (ie. Bar, Main Kitchen, Grill Station)
Active - Whether this kitchen is active or not
Catch all products - when checked, all orders will be routed to this station.
Ideal Queue Time (mins) - ideal time a product should be served upon order in minutes
Interval every (mins) - next elapse time that will indicate urgency. For example, given ideal queue time of 20 minutes and interval time of 10 minutes, the following color indication will be shown in the station.
Catching Specific Products
Alternatively, you can also specify which items will be shown in which particular station. This is useful if you have several areas for food preparation (ie. hot, cold, etc).
Uncheck the "Catch all products". A list will be displayed where you can either add a particular product or category.
Adding a Product or Category
To add a product or category, click on "Add" button.
This example shows that we are adding a particular product called "Coke 330ml".
Hierarchy - specify whether adding a product or particular category
Product ID - single product
Category - product category
The Enabled checkbox indicates whether this will be routed or not. This is useful when you choose a particular category and wishes to exclude some items in that category.
Batch Selection
To add by batch, click "batch select" and this will bring up the product batch selection window. You can only select individual products (not by category) here.
Hit "Save" and that's it! We have created our kitchen station.
Step 2: Assigning Station to POS Terminal
The next step is to assign the newly created station to the POS terminal. Open the terminal record in headquarter system as shown below.
In the terminal detail, check "This is a kitchen station", then select the appropriate station.
Please note that when a terminal is assigned as a kitchen station, it can no longer function as a cashiering module.
Routing Slip
You have an option to print a routing slip when status of order is change to "served". This will help the waiter identify and bring the item to appropriate location.
To do this, select the hardware interface tab in the terminal detail and choose appropriate setting for "Printer".
Hit save when done. We have finished all the necessary preparations. It's now time to look at the actual kitchen monitoring module.
Step 3: Running Kitchen Monitoring Station
Install the F&B module as described in Demo of Alliance WebPOS - Food and Beverage.
Running WebPOS FB will show you the actual kitchen monitoring station.
We have options to display the incoming orders by "Group Order" or "Single Order". Group layout allows us to view orders from the same source. This helps us decide which item will take precedence over others (ie. appetizers, salad, entree, dessert) that could be particular useful in fine dining setup.
In single layout, it allow us to queue product as they are ordered. This is ideal for fast food setup.
Group Box
Each item is displayed in a container called group box.
Here, all items for "Table 2" have an average queue time of "21 mins". Earlier, we set our ideal queue time to 20 mins, so this group box is now tagged with "yellow" urgency.
The next line is the source of order - 1st Floor, Table 2, followed by the list of products. Aside from the product name, there is an indicator named "(total of 7)". This means that there is a total of 7 orders of the same product from different groups. It enables us to prepare them altogether.
Kitchen monitoring is designed to be used with keyboard or touch screen. The guide is shown below.
Status Dialog
The status dialog allows you to update the status of the item.
The cycle of the product preparation is described below:
Group Order Dialog
Group order dialog displays list of all orders from a particular source (ie. table, delivery). In fine dining, you can use this to decide which order should be prepared first.
Group order from Sam to be picked up, indicated by header "PICK UP: Sam"
The operation is almost identical as the group box's.
Similar Products Dialog
This dialog allows you to view similar products from different sources.
Orders for Hamburger from different sources as indicated in the header "Hamburger (Similar Products)"
The operation for this dialog is described below:
Status in Pickup and Delivery
The general status displayed in pickup and delivery tab of Cashiering module will also be updated accordingly.
Status will automatically be changed from "Preparing" --> "Ready" once all items are prepared.
View Status of Product in Cashiering
The status of the product can also be viewed in cashiering module.
You can also override the status. Click appropriate row to open up product detail, then select "Status".
That is all to know about kitchen monitoring. Visit the live site at http://www.alliancepos.net and start using Alliance WebPOS.
