Design Notes
Automated foodservice to disrupt restaurant industry Edited by Mike Santora • Managing Editor
The Hyphen Makeline delivers a modular, industrial-hardened solution to help restaurants put kitchen operations on autopilot. | Beckhoff Automation
Now an industrial-appliance-sized design called the Makeline om food services company Hyphen is leveraging so ware, rugged automation, and networked controls to help labor-strapped restaurants meet modern business demands. “We founded the business in July 2018 to leverage automation technology in modern restaurants,” said Daniel Fukuba, Co-Founder and CTO of Hyphen. “Shortly therea er, we built the first completely automated food truck. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we pivoted and designed our new Makeline system to give restaurants the in astructure to adapt toward digital-first ordering.” The Hyphen Makeline assembles salads and other menu items served in a bowl — handling hundreds of ingredients at various temperatures. The system connects to Hyphen’s cloud services to route digital orders via MQTT. A er receiving an order, the Makeline 28
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activates dispensers to fill the bowls, conveying them through connected modules inside the enclosure. The machine also controls food safety and provides data insights about peak ordering times and customer habits. From the outside, it looks like a traditional makeline, and restaurant staff can still load ingredients and manually serve those who prefer to order in person. Clean control architecture eliminates messy situations Hyphen wanted the Makeline to fit into existing restaurant facilities; as Fukuba explained, “You can already buy mature industrial equipment off the shelf to process 300,000 pounds of salad per day. On the other end of the continuum, there are vending machines with
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6/29/22 10:36 AM
