Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Fools & Horses is a well-established restaurant-style coffee business with multiple locations in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The company plans to introduce robotics and automation within their restaurant processes to help drive efficiency, improve productivity and address labour shortage problems that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. While industrial robots, with their heavy payload and precision, will continue to thrive in industrial applications, we will see more collaborative and socially intelligent robots in our day-to-day lives, including healthcare, food services, materials handling, etc. Fools & Horses is planning to evaluate and implement robotics and automation within their coffee restaurants, with fully integrated collaborative robots working alongside humans in the brewing and order fulfilment processes. This concept will drastically reduce the number of employees required at each location while maintaining the company's customer-facing environment. The company is collaborating with RRC Polytech to evaluate, design, integrate and implement collaborative robotic barista solutions. RRC Polytech will capitalize on the College's existing assets and capabilities in robotic programming, human-machine interface (HMI), software development, mechanical design and manufacturing to deliver this project. While Fools & Horses will continue to focus on their core coffee business, the company will have access to local support for implementing this project and maintaining the equipment in a long-term through RRC Polytech and other local organizations. Successful implementation of this project will assist significantly in reducing the risk of investing in robotic baristas by Fools & Horses. Deployment of the robotic systems will result in cost savings, productivity improvement and an ability to manage labour shortage. The RRC Polytech team is looking forward to expanding their knowledge in robotics and automation to applications in the food services industry. The knowledge gained will be beneficial to the students and researchers on the project, and useful in future research engagements.