The product we are developing was a half boiled egg cracking machine, where it serves a Singapore style breakfast, half boiled egg with kaya/butter toast. There is standard equipment on the market that cooks half boiled eggs but doesn’t have the capability to crack and dispense the egg, also higher- end equipment using robots that are able to cook and serve sunny side up & scrambled egg are too high a cost for the F&B retail industry to adopt.
Therefore, we had an idea for a half boiled egg cracking machine that was able to cook and maintain the egg freshness, and with the push of a button can crack and serve the egg to the customer. The idea developed with an igus lead screw, motors and slider, as well as serving food it required a safe and hygienic purpose which is maintenance- free and free of lubrication. We are using a 3D printer to print the major parts for the prototype and are using an Arduino controller to prove the concept.
Moreover, the equipment idea was designed as modular, so, in future it will be able to integrate with Sunny Side up & Scrambled Egg Cooking equipment and further on with Toast making equipment.
Problem:
The problem of the existing F&B industry in Singapore was mainly labour- intensive due to tightening of the quota in the service industry. For example, in the local and overseas hotel industry, there are long queues for people to wait for scrambled egg or sunny side up eggs cooked by the chef.
With our current proposal to serve half boiled eggs (Singapore style breakfast), further integration with Sunny Side up & Scrambled Egg cooking equipment, it helps to allocate the manpower to more value jobs and enhance customer experience through better services.
Also the food safe handling and hygiene issues occur especially now due to the Covid19 virus. It’s a huge problem where the food has been handled by humans when they are not aware about personal health and transmit it to the population.
Besides that, food waste management was also important for a business operation as the top 3 major costs of F&B retails was labour, purchase of goods and material and space. Therefore, with industry 4.0 technology integrated in our equipment, we able to provide usage data for better control of our inventory and therefore enhance on food quality as well.
Solution:
This equipment has been enhancing food handling methods in Singapore F&B retails that serves Singapore breakfast style. It allows the worker to allocate more time to serve the customer with no more guesswork, wastage, adjusting of fire, watching the clock and customer waiting.
It also helps to improve food safety & hygiene as it is handled by machine, better inventory management with data collection of daily safety and improved food quality. With smaller footprint design idea, it allows F&B retails to maximize their workspace usage as well. Therefore, this equipment helps improve daily productivity, reduce operation costs through wastage reduction & inventory management that help increase the company revenue.
Currently we are proposing this idea & prototype to Singapore government for further improvement in capacity, sizes and speed and launch the product in the local and overseas market.
