Domino’s is a leader in tech innovations to make ordering and delivery a piece of cake (or, well, pizza). Ford is playing catch-up in the most important technology arena in its sector, with self-driving, autonomous vehicles transforming the automotive industry. So it makes sense that the two companies would pool resources to test the intersection of their interests: self-driving pizza delivery.
Fast, accurate delivery is a longstanding brand promise of Domino’s, which was founded on a 30-minute-delivery guarantee. CEO Patrick Doyle has encouraged Domino’s digital team to come up with a range of tech innovations to process and track orders, including via emoji requests on Twitter, a pizza oven on wheels and the Ford Sync connected car system. Its digital prowess has helped propel piping hot growth at Domino’s for several years now.
Ford, meanwhile, is seeking fresh ways to advance self-driving technology under new CEO Jim Hackett, who took the wheel from Mark Fields.
Now the two Michgan-based companies are co-funding an industry-first collaboration “to understand the role that self-driving vehicles can play in pizza delivery.”
The partners will explore customer reactions to interacting with a self-driving vehicle as part of their delivery experience by using a Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle to deliver orders to randomly selected Domino’s customers in the pizza giant’s hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The cars will be driven by Ford personnel.
Participating customers will be able to track the delivery vehicle through GPS using an upgraded version of Domino’s Tracker app, and will receive text messages as the vehicle approaches about how to retrieve their pizza using a unique code to unlock the Domino’s Heatwave Compartment inside the vehicle. And, of course, there’s no driver to tip.
“We pride ourselves in being technology leaders and are excited to help lead research into how self-driving vehicles may play a role in the future of pizza delivery,” Doyle stated . “This is the first step in an ongoing process of testing that we plan to undertake with Ford.”
Doyle told us earlier this year that he was committed to improve the physical delivery of pizza as well as ordering and tracking food online, noting that total delivery miles driven by Domino’s drivers equaled about one-third to one-half the total miles being logged by Uber drivers.
“Is there a way to do that far more efficiently than today?” Doyle said rhetorically. “We can get dramatically better than what we’re doing.”
Another part of the initiative for the Ford-Domino’s self-driving project stems from Domino’s customized pizza-delivery vehicle, called DXP, that it introduced a couple of years ago. DXP is a reconfigured Chevrolet Spark that features huge warming ovens instead of passenger seats. More than 150 Domino’s franchisees ordered the car, which isn’t currently in production.
Roush Enterprises, which fabricated the DXP, also developed the Heatwave Compartment, a crucial component of the prototype for the new self-driven vehicle.
“We’re interested to learn what people think about this type of delivery,” stated Russell Weiner, president of Domino’s USA. “The majority of our questions are about the last 50 feet of the delivery experience.”
For example, Weiner said, Domino’s wonders “how will customers react to coming outside to get their food? We need to make sure the interface is clear and simple. We need to understand if a customer’s experience is different if the car is parked in the driveway versus next to the curb. All of our testing research is focused on our goal to someday make deliveries with self-driving vehicles as seamless and customer-friendly as possible.”
The post Driverless Pizza Delivery? Ford and Domino’s Test What’s Possible appeared first on brandchannel:.
from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2017/08/30/driverless-pizza-delivery-ford-and-dominos-test-whats-possible/
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment