Every company once they have achieved a certain size will aim to mechanize some of their processes because they take a lot of manpower. If a robot can do the job, so much the better. The early robots helped stack pallets – the goods come down the production line and then need to put on a pallet to be put on a truck to go to the stores. Before the robots. someone had to stack the pallets but it led to back injuries, etc and a robot works 24 hours a day, every day. Every year, robots will and continue to evolve.

In an article by Waylon Cunningham of Reuters reported Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc has moved an automated bowl-and-salad maker and an avocado-processing robot out of its test kitchen and into a couple of stores in California.

Chiptole said that it is testing the technology to find efficiencies and help our restaurant employees continue providing great hospitality for our guests.

Employees who work with the automated bowl-and-salad maker will continue to make burritos and tacos, add side items and monitor the machine’s quality. Chiptole said 65% of all digital orders are bowls and salads.

Chiptole’s autocado technology, which cuts, cores and peels avocados before an employee mashes them into guacamole. The machine processes an avocado in 26 seconds. Chipotle which had revenues of $9.9 billion says it goes through 5 million cases of avocados a year.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when a company starts out there is an assembly line of people to get the job done. But overtime people ask what can be done more efficient or are there different processes to allow the work to be done with less people. The answer is overtime and the use of technology which results in fewer people are needed or some transition to something else, not a bad thing just reality. If the company you invest in, what efficiencies have they achieved lately?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.