2

Cassie Holmes

8/19/2023

Part Two: An Innovation Project

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Background 4

Business Opportunity 5

Technical Integration 5

Operational Environment 6

Summary 7

Resources 8

Introduction

I have worked in many different fast-food places and know that money can be a huge problem. This can be from stealing to employees can’t count. This goes for the employees and management. When I suggest is a safe and drawers that count everything for you. This would help fast-food places have more control over money coming in and out.

The idea will start with the safe, it will have special draws that the safe can count and add money into. These draws will have a certain amount to start and once you have a draw dispensed you can put it into a register. The registers will be different than your normal ones because you will not be able to open the drawer once it is in. You will have a slot to enter money into and the register will count the money and give you the correct amount back.

This whole idea will mainly target fast food but could potentially be used in any place that deals with cash like stores. You will make transactions to go faster, which is something that you want in a fast-food place because they have a certain time to get cars in and out of drive thru. It also makes sure that the money is watched carefully so that there is no stealing or miscount on anyone’s watch.

This idea will also be a benefit for customers. I have gone to many places where the employee enters the wrong amount that you give them and then have them not know how much to give back. This can be irritating when the employee tries to give you the wrong amount back and then you must get the manager involved and the usually means that they need to change the draw and count it down to check. This is time-consuming and when you are in a hurry this is not something you have time for.

The overall idea for this product will help both fast-food restaurants and the customers by adding a faster service and more accurate service. The idea could also help many others who deal with cash daily, making it an innovative idea.

Background

The business that this innovative idea will be for fast food restaurants. Currently they use a normal safe and register drawer. Employees and/or managers must count the drawers and the money to give to the customers. Most fast-food places such as McDonald’s have a safe with a certain number of drawers with a certain amount in each drawer and then they keep a certain amount in the safe for change.

Some places will have the employee count the drawers before and after their shift, while others will have the managers count all the draws. You must first count each drawer to the designated amount and the rest of the cash in the drawer is what was made from cash sales. Each place has its own POS system, which is point of sales, that tracks everything. This system will tell you how much cash you should have from each drawer and what the total deposit amount would be that needs to go to the back. Managers also need to keep track of how much money is in the safe to make sure that there is always a certain amount of money in the safe.

All of this is time-consuming and because we are all human mistakes can happen and money can miscounted. My idea will help to eliminate mistakes, along with freeing up time that they could be doing other important tasks.

Business Opportunity

Using this safe and drawer idea it will be able to do a few things. The first is it will spend up time in drive thru. Fast food restaurants have a certain time that they want orders taken, food made and handed out the window. Adding this idea, it will limit the time that it takes to collect money and give change to customers faster. It will also speed up the amount of time to count money before and after it is used.

The next thing that it will do is reduce mistakes and stealing by huge amount because it will limit how much access employees and managers have to the money. These are the reasons for many money problems in restaurants.

Technology Integration

This idea will work in two parts, it will have a register and a safe. Starting with the register, the drawer will not work in your traditional way. Once you put a drawer in it will not be able to open until it needs changed. It will be a lot like self-check outs in stores. You will be able to enter in the money that the customer gives you in little slots, the register will then count the money and feedback any change if any. This will eliminate the chances of any errors or mistakes when handing money back. This will also help to limit the chance of someone stealing money as well.

The safe will not be able to be opened besides to refill change and bills when it is running low. The safe will have a screen telling everything that is in it. It will tell you all the drawers in the safe and what bills and change are in there. When the safe is low on money it will give a notification allowing managers to know they need to go to the back to refill it. This will be when the safe will allow you to open it, when it is low.

The safe will have two slots to enter/withdraw drawers and a section that will give money for the deposit, there will also be a touch screen to put in options that you need to do. This top section will count the drawer down to the designated amount the places have and then move the rest of the money to deposit and keep track of the money. The second slot will be at the bottom which will give out drawers that will but used to put in the register.

When the restaurant chooses to take deposits to the bank, they will be able to use about the screen to have the deposit fed out to bag it. The screen will also have options to use the get drawers out and put in.

Operational Environment

Using these registers and safe will help to reduce the chance of mistakes with counting money. With a normal register you need to enter the amount of money the customer gives you and it will open the draw and tell you how much to give the customer back. Employees can enter the wrong amount of money and give back the wrong amount back. This slows down the process of getting customers through the rive thru. Employees can also miscount money in general. Whenever there is an issue, the manager usually must change out the drawer and count it down to see if the correct amount of money was given back or not. They sometimes also must watch the cameras to make sure money wasn’t stolen if drawers are correct.

These issues slow down the whole work process and create back relations with customers. This is way adding this new register and safe system could help improve the operations of the fast food industry.

Summary

With this overall idea it will help fast food restaurants with speed to make drive thru times go fast. It will also help to eliminate mistakes when dealing with money. It will also help to reduce stealing from happening. It will overall make a huge difference in the way they run the restaurant.

Resources

Davis, B. (2023, January 14).
How does a cash register work at a fast food restaurant?. FoodMood. https://foodmood.wiki/how-does-a-cash-register-work-at-a-fast-food-restaurant/

Miksen, C. (2021, November 20).
How to avoid making mistakes on the cash register. Bizfluent. https://bizfluent.com/how-7521707-avoid-making-mistakes-cash-register.html