Mcdonald's Technology

McDonald's Corp. has helped revolutionize the way restaurants use technology, dating back to founder Ray Kroc's fascination with serving burgers and fries in a matter of minutes. Throughout the years, their fascination with advancing their company technology wise has become a great obsession for the the IT department. In the 1970's, due to there outstanding lead and large burger chains which lead the industry they were able to move from cash registers and completely install computerized points-of-sale (POS). This particular sector of there technology has greatly advanced to even the present times when there POS are all touch screen, in some restaurants, are also self serving devices.

The most recent development has been installing WI-FI hotspots in most of there restaurant globally. This model is made to introduce more young and tech-people into the restaurants creating some what of a starbucks feel, which by the way is free. The electronic payment model is made to quicken the ordering and payment of food, putting in a system that shortens the processing time, preparation time and payment.

Did you know, Mcdonalds uses a 100% biodiesel Technology. Doing this has helped reduce carbon emissions with the truck making the deliveries. To make this processes a reality, Keystone Foods who supply Mcdonalds with there meat worked very carefully with a fuel manufacturer in the UK, which they came up with the idea of using biodiesel to reduce there CO2 emissions per year. The B100(the biodesel fuel used) has been adapted to make this possible.

McDonald's uses Nintendo DS system as a e-learning training tool for their new recruit staff in over 3,000 of their restaurants. These gaming systems train the recruits and grade them on their performance, in which they can compare with other colleagues and view their progress. This new usage of technology allow McDonald's to use less paper and have their employees enjoy their on the job learning experience.

The technology used throughout the corporation is the ACS system. This contract renewed in January 2010, by the Chief Technology Officier of McDonald's, for another five years. ACS provides a full range of services to McDonald's, including mainframe and midrange server support, networking operations and engineering and data center facilities management. ACS also provides service desk functions, user access, executive and security administration, desktop support and messaging services, as well as end-to-end application performance monitoring service that improves diagnosis of performance issues across core technology stacks and will support development, testing and quality assurance processes.

What are some files used in McDonald's?
McDonald’s has a lot of information concerning its employees, competitors, supply information, costs and expenditure. Some of the information about employees would involve employee information, contact information personal information brief history on the person as seen as they were employed initially. The expenditure list would contain the revenue income, the expenditure for that year and all the years that McDonalds have been operational. They would also have some details about who supplies there meat bread and other resources need to produce there burgers. This would specifically include the amounts per shipment and how much has been used and if there are wastes or extras. Having the employee’s salary list per week and their total annual salary including bonuses will also be documented.

Who is responsible for the database? How do managers get reports? What type of reports?

1) The database administrator is in charge of the management of the database. These reports are formed from a collection of information based on a particular subject such as payroll. These can be reports from general information about a person’s performance, or a group of people’s performance or even a report on the amount of people that work overtime and clock in for longer hours.

Is OLAP used? Is data warehouse used? Are data marts used?
Yes, McDonald's use OLAP (online analytical processing: which is the manipulation of information to support decision making). A data warehouse (a logical collection of information from many different databases) is used at McDonald's utilizing software by ACS, Teradata, MicroStrategy, and Oracle. McDonald's also uses data marts. Data marts narrow down specific detailed information that may be needed for a specific department.

What types of data mining is used? Who is responsible? What software?
Data mining tools: software tools you use to query information in a data warehouse.
Data mining tools used in a data warehouse is SQL and multidimensional.

What are some hardware categories used in McDonald's? What brands of computer? What types of computers?

Supercomputer, workstations, PDA’s and E-payment devices are used in McDonalds. Apple computers and IBM play a great role in the way McDonalds computer or technology department runs and their technology department.

Who is responsible for the hardware and software?
Generally the Information Technology department is responsible for the hardware and software, specifically, the Senior Director of IT Business Intelligence at McDonald's. ParTech is the Point of Sale equipment that is used, which includes, hardware, software, and service to McDonald's.
What types of system software is used? Is Linux used?
Microsoft is used by McDonald’s, in 2005, they announced that Microsoft will be utilized by there company, a specific component version will be made by windows to take orders and enable them make multiple forms of payment. Windows XP has been embedded and deployed, across many stores, and also have introduced the next generation of customer service innovation by bringing an open technology platform.

What types of application software is used? What brands?

McDonald uses the Microsoft retail specific operating system by XP, which has been added to the new worldwide point-of-sale system. They specifically use the XP embedded, which also helps trim staff training costs. These points of sale have been installed through the thousands of devices worldwide.

What type of network do they have?
Dell and Gateway make house calls for fees starting at $160.Network used at McDonalds is Wi-Fi “AT&T Wireless' high-speed Internet access is up to 50 times faster than standard dial-up service. Data-transfer rates are up to 11 Mbps for wireless access, however, they also depend upon on the underlying transport rate (http://www.mcdonalds.com).”

What kind of interface do they use?

McDonald's system runs on a virtual private network, piggybacking off the Internet and featuring a Web browser-based user interface. (clickhere)

What kind of media?

Since McDonald's is a huge company and has several different locations they would have to use wireless transmission media.

What kind of communications software?
McDonald's uses Windows XP embedded as their operating communications software.
(to view article (clickhere)

What kind of connecting devices or components?

McDonald's uses a router as their form of connecting component.

How do they connect to the internet and at what speeds?
They connect to the Internet, through a wifi hotspot, which have been located at there restaurants. The wifi service at McDonald’s is provided by AT&T which has a data transfer speed of 11Mbps at the wireless access points.


Do they use Voice over IP?

McDonalds announcing the availability of WI-FI has made VoIP calling very realistic, with the use of Skype reduces traffic on subscription hotspots and 3G/GPRS. This provides the customers with that option.

How do they apply the four principles of network security?
Mcdonalds apply the four principles of networking security by not letting unauthorized users access to the network. They also have firewalls and make sure that any fake websites are flagged and they do not have the authenticity sign which prove that the website is real. They do this by creating the web server not to process or send out forged or unauthorized people or website on the network. They provided free Wifi to enable it available to everyone, who is in their restaurant the ability to access the internet and network easily and safely.

What is their domain name?

Mcd.com is McDonald's domain name