While it would never classify as an actual problem, there’s something rather annoying about getting a pizza that’s less than a perfect circle or comes with unevenly distributed toppings and sauce. Domino’s, who more and more wants to be a tech company that just happens to sell pizza, announced this week it has begun to address this quality control issue by using AI.
In Australia and New Zealand, the company is debuting its DOM Pizza Checker, which is a smart scanning device that hangs above the cut bench at Domino’s locations and uses AI, machine learning, and sensor tech to assess the quality of the pizzas before they’re sliced and boxed up.
When the pizza arrives at the cut bench, DOM compares its quality to existing pizza images stored in its database and grades the pie based on whether it’s the right kind (e.g., thin crust versus thick) with the right toppings which are evenly distributed. If the pizza doesn’t pass muster, DOM will notify the team of human workers, who will make the pie again.
According to the DOM website, Domino’s has been developing the tech in partnership with Dragontail Systems for the past two years. It joins a growing number of tech offerings the pizza company has unveiled over the last few years, from chatbots taking orders to location technology to in-car ordering.
DOM Pizza Checker is another example of why Domino’s landed on our most recent Food Tech 25 list. The company seems to be endlessly dabbling in new ways to deliver pizzas to your doorstep faster. Some of them, like the AnyWare program, work great. Others are a little less impactful (hello, DXP), and I question how frequently the company slaps the “AI” label on projects. But whether something like DOM is a huge success and heads Stateside or drops into oblivion, its very existence shows that Domino’s is analyzing every angle of the process to try and get a better pizza into your hands.
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