Restaurant Equipment

A restaurant-equipment manufacturer based in the Midwest was ready to revamp its widely used commercial-food equipment.

Looking for a Modern Interface, Restaurant-Equipment Manufacturer Taps ICS 

The company, which supplies some of the most recognizable to-go brands, wanted to switch the controls on its equipment from simple hardware-button interfaces to modern touchscreen displays offering greater ease of use and performance. ICS’ reputation for Qt development excellence and facility with QtQuick made the company a natural fit for this Qt-based project, which encompassed both architecture development and implementation.

Challenge

In business for more than half a century, the manufacturer had a long and successful track record with its flagship equipment and was concerned that the new interfaces might not live up to expectations. In addition, the company had tackled other embedded-controller projects in a traditional way, with the entire software and hardware teams working side by side, and was comfortable with that approach. This new project involved following a different process built around a distributed development team, radically different hardware, and an unfamiliar, more contemporary touch user interface (UI) -- a lot of change for the customer to embrace at once.

Solution

To offer peace of mind, the ICS team kept the manufacturer updated on the process at regular intervals. That process included using QtQuick, along with a Qt/C++ back-end, to create a modern UI appropriate for use in fast-food restaurant chains worldwide.

The UI ICS developed runs on a dedicated touchscreen controller that communicates with a separate hardware controller. The ICS team also implemented a robust remote-update mechanism for controller firmware and interface software, as well as built a Yocto-based operating system for their embedded UI controller, including drivers for the touchscreen and wireless networking.  

Result

Though there were some growing pains as the customer got used to a new process, the manufacturer received a solid, well-designed and more modern UI. They also embraced some new-to-them agile development tools and enhanced team communication with the adoption of a chat tool. As a result of these actions, the manufacturer has a strong foundation for confidently executing future software development projects.