How City Lodge Hotels is using smart ovens to enhance operational efficiency and guest experiences.
Exciting innovations are taking place in the hospitality industry, according to Nkosenhle Ngongoma, director of IT at City Lodge Hotels. The IT leader is spearheading a smart oven project across the hotel group’s properties, aimed at enhancing both operational efficiency and guest experiences.
Q: What was the primary driver for integrating smart ovens into City Lodge Hotels, and how will they enhance operational efficiency or guest experiences?
A: The integration of these ovens into our network and enabling them to be remotely managed assists our group in the management of food recipes, enabling us to create and manage our recipe ideas digitally, or be inspired by the smart ovens recipe library. Simply transfer cooking programs to all networked ovens’ cooking systems with a single click, in seconds, and one can produce food to the quality specified in all our kitchens regardless of location and the skills of the kitchen team.
Our guests are able to experience the same food quality and taste from all our hotels. These ovens give our chefs access to international recipes from master chefs with suitable unit settings as a source of inspiration, it also allows the adequate management of stock items for ingredients.
Beyond food preparation, the oven's intuitive software interface also enables the team to manage hygiene and safety by controlling the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) digitally. All HACCP data can be downloaded with just the tap of a finger. In addition, the care status and cleaning status can be clearly displayed, and cleaning plans can be created.
Q: What were the biggest technical or logistical challenges your team faced during this rollout, and how did you overcome them?
A: The biggest hurdle was firstly that we do not have wi-fi in our kitchens, to run network cables also can be a nightmare as it requires careful planning and ensuring the kitchen does not lose its HACCP certifications. We also had to create a network that will be segregated from our corporate network to enable these devices to connect to our network securely.
These smart ovens are the first IoT devices on our network, which meant we had to establish new baseline standards, policies, and procedures for IoT security. Overcoming these challenges required meticulous planning, close collaboration with third-party service providers, and coordination with our food and beverages team. We documented potential risks and mitigation strategies, ensuring that any issues that arise can be swiftly addressed.
Q: How did your team approach this integration, and were there any unexpected moments of ingenuity that made the project smoother?
A: We have four brands in our group, each brand has different kitchen designs and sizes and shapes. Our team had to ensure that the network designs will be the best fit per hotel brand, while ensuring minimal or no disruptions to the hotel and kitchen operations during installations of these devices.
Q: What key performance indicators (KPIs) or are you using to measure the impact of this microwave integration on City Lodge Hotels' network and operations?
A: We are monitoring several KPIs to assess the success of this project, including:
- Improved ratings and positive feedback related to the food and beverages experience
- Increase in F&B revenue
- Reduction / elimination of food wastage
- Track and reduction of emissions towards our sustainability goals
- Ensuring the maintenance of kitchen health and safety regulatory requirements
Q: Now that this project is underway, how do you see it evolving in the coming years?
A: With such technology, the sky is the limit, we will be looking at integrating the rest of the food and beverage value chain around these technologies for improved stock management and cost containment, and much more.
