- Home
- Companies
- Powerhouse Dynamics
- Articles
Powerhouse Dynamics articles
The food service industry was hit hard by the pandemic and unfortunately, the problems aren’t in the rearview mirror just yet. When restaurants across the nation were forced to close, owners looked forward to a time when their empty tables would be full again. But with that day here, many are still struggling; not because customers aren’t showing up, but because they can’t find workers. According to the National Restaurant Association, employment at eating and drinking
Jay Fiske
CFOs and COOs often struggle to fully understand the different energy saving approaches that are being pitched at them on a daily basis. One of the most mysterious is “demand charges“. Translating this bit of utility-speak is important because in some parts of the country, demand charges can account for up to 50 of your utility bill cost. The good news is that even 24/7 operations can take action to reduce this cost.
Jason Roeder
As more and more equipment in Food Service organizations is connected to the Internet, more attention needs to be paid to security. Each piece of equipment represents a potential target of a cyberattack; as the number of connected units increases, so does the security risk.
There have been multiple reports of security breaches associated with connected equipment, covering consumers, corporations, retail stores, manufacturing facilities, and even medical facilities. The latter c
Martin Flusberg
Ghost kitchens – companies providing kitchen infrastructure for new or existing food service concepts looking to expand quickly with delivery-only offerings – are rapidly gaining steam in our “new normal” and are poised to transform a significant portion of the food service industry.
While there are a few different iterations
Jay Fiske
In the hospitality industry, the customer experience is obviously critical. Part of the customer experience in dine-in facilities is their physical comfort, and part of our SiteSage solution helps to ensure consistently comfortable restaurant temperatures through our enterprise-wide control and diagnostics of heating and cooling systems.
However
Jay Fiske
Packaged rooftop units (RTUs) are essential to most commercial operations. They are vital to every cool ice cream shop on a hot day, warm coffee shop on a cold one, and now (more important than ever) the increased ventilation required for restarting business mid-pandemic. Because of RTUs’ key role in delivering a great customer (and staff) experience, problems with the unit need to be addressed as quickly as possible. A failed system could lead to an uncomfortable environment, resulting
Ben Lawee
As restaurants and retailers begin reopening across the country, we have been reflecting on how our “new normal” in a pandemic-wary world will change the ways in which our food service and retail customers act. For our typical users, who are focused on facilities maintenance, energy consumption, or food safety and product quality, three themes are surfacing:
- Less tolerance for risk
- More focus on cost reduction
- An acceleration of automation
Jay Fiske
Restaurants are being allowed to re-open in many parts of the country, typically with some level of restriction that may vary widely from state to state. In my home state of Massachusetts, one of the hardest hit by COVID-19, restaurants have been able to re-open as of last week – for outdoor dining only. Texas is starting phase 3 of its re-opening, with restaurants now allowed to have up to 75% capacity with 10 people per table and tables as little as 4 feet apart, with par
Martin Flusberg
At the end of the year, most of us are doing a lot of looking back and planning ahead. One thing every multisite operator should do is look back on equipment performance and plan ahead for equipment repairs and replacement. One move we see many of our customers making – and now is a great time to do it – is to just-in-time replacement of equipment rather than the traditional run-to-fail approach that defers purchases for as long as possible and tries to wring the maximum li
Jason Roeder
Last Friday marked an important day in the evolution of SiteSage. What began as a critical energy savings and facility maintenance optimization solution has become a must-have, on-premise food safety and connected equipment monitoring tool. When our customers compete in an increasingly crowded market, the right investments and forward-looking decisions can really make the difference in optimizing their operations, which is why we are thrilled to introduce the next generation of our
Martin Flusberg