Big discussion on this yesterday with a good amount of comments.

There seems to be this other company that made a device to read error codes, and then theres legal trouble surrounding that and the copyright on the firmware of the original controller board.

But all this seems like not the best approach-

The electronics on the original boards themselves do not appear that complicated. This machine itself, mechanically, cannot have all that sophisticated of mechatronic interface.

Why not just circumvent everything with a completely new 3rd party control board that replaces the OE electronics completely and runs the machines?

People design and develop systems every day for fun even that are an order of magnitude more complicated than the control system of this ice cream machine.

Are the machines leased or owned? Because if they are owned outright (which is implied by the fast that ifixit was able to buy a used one to work on) then wholesale replacement of the control electronics would just void any warranty but would not be able to be hit with any sort of firmwarm hack copyright claim, assuming any new software writted for the control logic was clean-sheet engineered and not reversed from the Taylor control system.

At some point if they are leased, breaking the lease and buying the machines outright and then upgrading the controls would potentially be the way forward for the franchises.

Unless in the lease there is a clause that breaking the lease requires repossession of the hardware from the premises.

At which point franchises need to stand up to McDonalds corporate and demand a new supplier of machines of a new design.

McDonald's is trying to run an industrial volume process with ingredients subject to contamination and spoilage... using minimum wage young workers with varying levels of attention/dedication to details.

It's a difficult set of constraints that includes a non-negligible amount of blaming the machine for willful lapses in procedure.

McDonald's appears to sell a lot more soft serve (by volume) than any other fast food chain. People go there specifically for McFlurries and others, and then leave disappointed when the machine is not working. Few, if any, go to Burger King or Arby's only for a soft serve product.

So, the issue appears more visible. But that's not evidence that McDonald's machines are less reliable. It could simply be they're the most used.

[1] https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/sites/corp/nfl/p...

Point is, they can't even get "no pickles" right.

For reference, here's a first person report from one of the previous times this was brought up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26938854

Burger King appears to also use Taylor equipment, although not the combo 2-in-1, do-it-all model that McDonald's does.

Wendy's uses a custom machine built by Kappus for their Frosties. [0] [1]

[0] History https://www.wendys.com/blog/history-of-frosty

[1] How It's Made https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oorX3mHgHQs&t=95s

Also, they're a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway since 1998.

The REAL Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken by Johnny Harris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

You're getting at the heart of it. McDonalds used to use very simple Taylor machines that were very reliable. The only problem was they had to be taken apart, cleaned, and sanitized at the end of every day. That required an extra employee at closing for about an hour, and another employee the next morning to put the machine back together. This wasn't difficult, but it wasn't totally obvious either so it did require an employee who had been trained on how to do it.

McDonald's wanted to save the training and the $10-$20 of labor, and a few dollars of product waste that this was costing them every day, so they asked Taylor to develop a machine that didn't have to be taken apart and sanitized every day. Taylor did that, and the machine got a lot more complicated. It heats itself up to a temperature that will kill bacteria, then cools back down. If there is a power glitch or fault or for any reason that cycle is interrupted, the machine locks out and has to be "repaired."

Also, as part of the daily cleaning and re-assembly of the old machines, all the O-rings and seals would be inspected and lubricated and replaced if they were cut, worn out, etc. Now that doesn't happen so you get more failures of seals, leaks, etc. which can also shut the machine down.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

The cost of maintenance is thrown onto the franchisee (350$ per 15min as explained in the article) which McD doesn’t have to care about. So Taylor seems them cheap because they know they will get their end from maintenance which the franchisee pays for

If Taylor machines were actually a real threat to the viability of many McDonalds franchises, McDonalds corp would make changes. It is against their interests for McDonalds franchises to fail and they already employ several severe and strict measures to reduce the likelihood of failure.

If this system seems overbearing, then simply start your own burger shop, or get a franchise from a fast food brand who doesn't give a shit like Subway. Subway will give a franchise to somebody with a tenth as much money, don't care if franchises sit on top of each other, etc. Not incidentally, Subway has an abysmal reputation for consistency, quality, cleanliness and food safety. McDonalds food is crap, but it's crap in a way that is consistent and safe (in the short term; it might give you diabetes but it probably won't give you botulism.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJpNX_MyvYs

McDonald's investors: they also own the companies that make the expensive failure-prone ice cream machines. They are double dipping by writing themselves expensive repair contracts.

Let's make something very clear here. McD does not concern itself with the woes of the franchisees. Not one ketchup sachet worth of worry. Costs? Not their problem.

Reputation loss maaaaybe.

Taylor gets exclusivity from McD and in turn gets exclusive access to maintenance.

I see other commenters making the point "they are trying to make bottom dollar employees operate a machine with food safety worries". Absolutely correct. Which should be grounds for McD to ask Taylor to incorporate the more user friendly panels and operation.

Now think why McD is not doing that

That's exactly what this machine is.

The issue is that it's doing something novel--sterilizing the machine while full of liquid--in order to be able to be run by unskilled (read as: super cheap) labor.

The fundamental issue is not that the machine breaks down--that's to be expected in a novel industrial machine.

The problem is that there is no incentive to fix the design of the machine. Taylor gets no extra profit for doing more R&D and fixing the machine--precisely the opposite, in fact, as they get less repair revenue. McDonald's, itself, gets no extra profit for doing more R&D and fixing the machine, either, and would have to spend money on training if they went back to traditional machines.

The total market for these machines is effectively the number of new McDonald's. Call these a $20K machine and McDonalds opens 500 stores per year in the US. That's $10,000,000 in new sales revenue in a year, max. That puts net profit at about $1,000,000 per year (call it 10% of gross revenue--probably optimistic for this kind of machinery)

And now we hit why Taylor certainly isn't jumping to fix this and no competitor really wants into the space. Net profit of $1,000,000 per year gets dwarfed by the service revenue really quickly.

It’s not the warranties that concern them. The franchisees are worried about running afoul of McDonald’s corporate, which limits what franchisees can do even to owned equipment.

But Taylor (presumably) won't repair them if they have modified boards and it's a breech of contract for them to hire anyone else to repair them.

They have zero monetary incentive to allow the franchise owners to fix the machines in any way. It's a net loss to them if they don't break down as often or they can service them without an expensive technician.

But we let worse things slide, so who cares. Enjoy your ice cream! :)

The device should be legal if you or I buy this machine. However installing it at McDonalds by a non “certified tech” might be in violation of the franchise contract

So the only people smart enough to repair them safely are the manufacturers?

So only take your car to the dealership for a service?

Meat is cooked just before the use, it does not get poisonous very easily. Ice cream is very different. How would you ensure that managers throw away "good enough" batches of ice cream every evening?

Not the right to break health and safety laws.

And enforcement is pretty lacking in itself. Most people won't report it to the authorities that they got the runs from some ice cream, the authorities will only hear about it when dozens of people arrive at the hospital with the same symptoms, and even then most public health departments have already been understaffed prior to COVID to follow up on the hospital reports and conduct inspections.

What McD/Taylor are doing here is, as fucked up as it is, the only meaningful way they can make sure they're not labeled a public health risk.

There is a chain of custody, paper trail, spare parts certification, logging... For example if there is a heat ex-changer that sometimes does not work, it may cause a lawsuit. McDonald (and insurance companies) wants to be able to sue ice cream machine manufacturer.

I also want to be able to replace any "suitable" parts in my car, but sadly government does not allow that! Remember, when everyone lost their shit with Volkswagen "cheating" in their software?

Kytch board: "reservoir is overfull, remove product and start again"

Ah yes, good thing we ensured those fucking rubes did not touch the ice cream! Better schedule a $2000 service call to solve this impossible error. Excuse me while I park my ferrari next to my grand piano.

If they're still the same machines from decades past when I worked at McDonald's then refilling the machine is just dumping a bag of mix in the container on the top. It doesn't take much qualifications. Slightly easier than refilling a printer.

The machines from decades past had a manual cleaning cycle that included draining the system, partial disassembly and disinfection of parts. Most assistant store managers (and some shift managers) are/were trained for this job. Of course most other restaurants are using these older designs without issue. Also, McDs themselves used these older machines without issue at the time.

The board members for McDs are also board members for the equipment oem, and the licensed repair orgs. It's about extracting money from franchisees more than it is about food safety. It could mean a reduction in maintenance and labor, but there's no reason that higher level store managers/assistants can't also be trained in basic maintenance on these newer machines.

Some of them actually did graduate from "ice cream academy". Local Ice Cream parlor has reputation to maintain. Sometimes it is even directly operated by ice cream company.

McDonalds just runs automated machine somewhere in corner. They have no reputation to maintain, it is just borrowed franchise.

A local ice cream parlor isn't making ice cream on the fly.

They are scooping it from premade buckets stored in special freezer cases during business hours and stored in walking freezers at close.

As other's have pointed out, McDonalds, or their franchises, wanted to eliminate the couple hours of labor usually required to clean those machines daily, and so developed their own mix, and Taylor made special machines that would "self clean" to support it. For safety reasons (probably), those machines lock themselves down if anything goes off the sanitized happy path, and only super expensive Taylor techs have the requisite knowledge to get them back on track.

McDonald's is alone in this struggle because they wanted to save $20 a day in wages. It's $350 per 15 minutes to fix the machines, so assuming it's just one button to fix them (it's not) it only has to break down less than once every 18ish days to pay off, but it doesn't scale well if the machines are less reliable than that.

>Ice cream shall contain at least 1.6 pounds of total solids to the gallon, weigh not less than 4.5 pounds to the gallon, and contain not less than 20 percent total milk solids, constitued of not less than 10 percent milkfat. In no case shall the content of milk solids not fat be less than 6 percent. Whey shall not, by weight, be more than 25 percent of the milk solids not fat.

Whether McDonald’s product meets that standard, I am not sure.

In addition, real ice cream purveryors would be up in arms over it. And they have in the past.

The ice-cream ingredients are:

"Ice Cream

Ingredients: EITHER: Allergen Ingredient: Skimmed MILK, Sugar, Cream (Allergen Ingredient: MILK), Whey Powder (Allergen Ingredient: MILK), Glucose Syrup, Stabilisers (Guar Gum, Carrageenan), Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Flavouring. OR: Allergen Ingredient: Reconstituted Skimmed MILK, Cream (Allergen Ingredient: MILK), Sugar, Whey Powder (Allergen Ingredient: MILK), Glucose Syrup, Allergen Ingredient: Skimmed MILK Powder, Stabilisers (Guar Gum, Carrageenan), Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Flavouring."

Source: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/galaxy-salted-car...

Re: Why does my homemade bread go stale so fast?!

> Vanilla Reduced Fat Ice Cream

https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/mcflurry-with-ore...

Essentially - this should be a fight between franchisees and McD's. It's also a bad look for McD - yes let's get a lot of bad PR about how we screw over franchisees. If they do that to their partners - what do you think they're doing to the food?

Who are we kidding - we know what they do to the food. The less you deal with the arches the better.

Until about 2 years ago, it used to be cheap and fast. Now it's neither of those things.

My bellwether is my youngest. He's 10 and would rather just eat at home if McDonald's is the only option. Last week he chose peanut butter sandwiches instead of chicken nuggets when we knew we'd be actively on the road during supper. So that's something.

When you have a machine that fails that often, and has become that much of a publicity problem, you would think a company like McDonald's would say OK enough is enough, we're changing the machines.

Given that there's been a lawsuit between the OEM and the startup making mods for the machine for 2 years and no such documents have been found in discovery, my guess is no.

There's no way I'm sitting through all that, and the chapter headings aren't very helpful either. Can you link to a specific timestamp?

This is bad for the people you are elected to represent -- snooze.

This is bad for your stock portfolio -- we have to act now!

That's a sentence I wasn't expecting to read, ever. There are only two types of people that I have ever met that would fall into that category: kids, who don't know any better about what food stuff they eat, and addicts.

This is not true though.

Even with Right to Repair laws, McDonald's can and will force franchisees to use the approved machines, contract the approved repair vendor, and use approved parts.

It's McDonald's decision, whether we agree with it or not. It's their reputation, and ultimately their wallet at stake. They can, and will contractually force franchisees to do what they want. That's how franchises are run.

The reality is this is not a Right to Repair issue. This is a franchise contract issue.

There's a company involved that appears to be attempting to shoehorn their way into lucrative commercial repair services... and they're touting it as Right to Repair hoping to force their way in. Reality is nobody knows what quality their device actually is, or what the long term consequences (if any) of using their tool are (all we have are claims from interested parties). For all we know, it just bypasses safety and sanitization requirements McDonald's specifically wanted built into the product.

A contract does not contravene federal or state law.

It does in this case. If you do not follow McDonald's instructions and/or contract, they will terminate your franchise.

As much as you believe a franchisee has a right to use whatever machine they want, and repair it with whatever parts they want, that's just not how franchises work.

They are franchises, not individual restaurants. They do not get a choice over how long to cook the burgers, what size fries to offer, what grills to use, and what soft serve machine to use and it's sanitization standards.

There's an approved parts and vendor list for everything in a McDonald's restaurant. Franchisees basically get a catalog of approved things they can use.

McDonald's sells consistency above basically anything else. They have clearly decided having machines be inoperable is better than risking getting someone sick. The machine's are designed for inattentive employees with little to no training to operate effectively and safely. If the machine says "no go", then that's final. McDonald's wants that safety and consistency across all stores, and that is their right as the brand owner.

No Right to Repair law will change the terms of franchise agreements. Franchises that refuse to honor their agreement will simply be terminated. That's McDonald's right.

Honestly... as far as fast food franchises go, McDonald's is perhaps the most clean and consistent - given their massive size (double their next closest direct competitor). It's a marvel things are as safe as they are, given the varying quality and level of caring each franchise owner can have.

People cut corners when things get tough. A franchisee with autonomy over things like deep cleaning of the soft serve machine will choose not to do it if they can sell more (quite literally what people are advocating for in this very thread). It's not their reputation and brand at risk, it's McDonalds'.

Frankly, it's a good thing McDonald's exerts this level of control.

Contracts cannot remove all rights. For example, they can't force you to place yourself in harms way, or to harm others.

There is no law that forces McDonald's to extend you a franchise license. It's their right to run their brand how they want.

Part of the franchise contract would be an agreement to use their approved vendor/parts list.

If some law passed and McDondald's was going to lose control of franchises, consistency and their brand, they'd probably pivot to a mostly or entirely corporate-owned/operated model.

However, it's unreasonable to assert a franchise should be able to use whatever devices, machines, standards and consistency they want... which is what is being advocated here it seems.

As an aside, your example about refusing to sell a license to someone based entirely on the color of their skin would be quite difficult to prove and enforce. I'm not advocating for anything, just pointing out they can deny a license for pretty much any reason, or no reason, and nobody would be able to compel them otherwise. It is their brand, and nobody has a right to operate using that brand unless McDondald's allows it. That's the entire point of a franchise - use someone else's brand.

Also, what reasoning did McDonalds corporate have for telling franchisees not to use the device?

This must be some bizarre and long contractual agreement between McD and Taylor

In short, McDonald's continues to use these frequently malfunctioning ice cream machines due to their long-standing exclusive partnership with Taylor. The cost of repairs fall on the local franchise owners, not McD Corp.

McDonalds has Walmart level bargaining powers with vendors. The current setup, where a machine breaks and you have to call a specific technician for insane rates is not an accident. McDonalds could change that tomorrow if they felt like it. No business relationship at McDonald's scale will ever be tilted away from their benefit.

The old machines had higher training and labor costs though, and over thousands of stores this was an issue. Presumably the newer machines are overall less expensive, even accounting for the lost sales on days where they are offline, and the associated repair costs. They may also be necessary for the newer ice cream products. In my day we only had vanilla soft-serve (cones or sundaes) and shakes with three flavors.

McDonald's isn't in business to keep Taylor repair techs employed. If it was costing them more than the alternatives, they would make a change.

They seem to be moreso than the abuser that is Subway, but I expect this is a situation where what's good for McD corporate isn't what's good for franchisees.

It is much more interesting than I expected.

Namely, that McDonald's franchises agree to only use repair labor from a contractually enforced monopoly. McDonalds and the ice cream machine company collude to extract money from franchises. He also compares McDonald's ice cream machines to Wendy's, which are the same brand under a different contract scheme and finds that Wendy's does not have the same problems.

I think there’s a possibility Mcdonald’s hates that they need to sell Ice-cream. There’s a probability Icecream’s an inescapaable loss leader and their lowest margin item and that it is a poor loss leader due to it’s substitution effect with probably their highest margin product - soft-drinks. Because neighbouring restaurants offer ice-cream - Mcdonald’s also needs to - because people often feel like an ice-cream. If they don’t provide ice-cream while BurgerKing does then they lose high margin Fries and Softdrink sales. By offering icecreams with the minimal tolerable 85% reliability (ice cream isn’t a deal breaker - few people cancel an order when they can’t get a sunday with it - but it is an enticer - they remember Mcdonald’s ice-cream is nicer than Burger King’s when they get it - it’s the equivalent of Wendy’s ice-cream but cheaper). So there’s a possibility they’ve figured out that 85% reliability maximises high margin sales and minimises low margin ones.

Maybe they’ve figured out how to offer low cost high-quality ice-cream just enough of the time to maximise gross profit. A second order effect of 15% reliability - is the lack of reliability also discourages ice-cream orders - because - people try to avoid disappointment and decision making in group situations under time pressure.

Markup on soft-drinks and fries are massive compared to ice-cream. As you mentioned Free flow ice-cream probably has the highest food safety management cost on top of the low gross margins. It also gives staff cold hands and melts quickly in summer. It’s not a great loss leader but an inescapable one. Their other option would be to raise ice-cream prices but wendy’s grade ice-cream is an enticer. It would possibly cost more profit than 85% reliability.

There’s potential for profiting from co-operation on the lack of machine reliability but the franchisees will also be maximising profits by offering the minimal amount of ice-cream possible to not cost big-mac + frys + soft-drink sales. Mcdonald’s could possibly be paying high machine fees for exclusivity so Burger King doesn’t get an option of higher quality Ice-cream.

The only person really missing out is someone wanting an ice-cream 15% of the time - who like the franchisee - may be disappointed in the reliability of the ice cream machine - but is also better off financially - even if they don’t realise it. A possible third order effect is it breaks food addictions to things like ordering thick shakes on the way to work - regular consumption of sugar + saturated fat is not a healthy combination. Health management is a large concern for Mcdonald’s.

I’m happy with low-cost high quality ice-cream 85% of the time. I prefer that option to more expensive Ice-cream. I think this is part of the magic of the market economy. The invisible hand.

Are carrot problems killed by their public disclosure? I hope not, I like the 85% probability of cheap delicious ice-cream.

An amazing thing would be if there was tech in the machines making failure rates non random. I wonder if they fail more in winter than summer for instance which would educate the consumer about the lack of reliability so when summer comes less ice-cream is ordered.

This just my 3 minute thought experiment (brain fart) but could be a great topic for a behavioural economist such as the freakonomics blog to cover.

For one, franchise owners decide when to do repairs that are prohibitively expensive. Two, the failures are not "random" and likely store based (one franchise down for 2 weeks rather than 10 franchises down a day) because it's owner discretion on when to fix it. Three, there is demonstrated profit in the McDonalds <-> Taylor collusion based monopoly.

There's no need for an elaborate spreadsheet conspiracy. Taylor is using a contract which enables them to charge exorbitant amounts for labor and prevent the free market (iFixIt and Kytch) from providing equivalent labor (theoretically under equivalent liability) at a much cheaper cost.

There is very clear conflict of interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

Mcdonalds is making a contractual obligation on behalf of the franchises and that contractual obligation benefits McDonalds at the cost of the Franchises.