An easy system in restaurants to keep track of hot food location would be to implant inexpensive RFID chips into each piece of serving ware. Cooks on the line would be able to touch an item on their order screen to tell the system when they were getting ready to plate an item. The system would be then "watch" for them to pull a plate from the fresh plate stack and then assign that plate's ID to the product they plated onto it. RFID readers mounted in the alley window and tray counter would be able to read and tell location of items. Orders would be automatically bumped for pickup when all items were assembled in a way. An led grid mounted in the top of the heated window would project color-coded spotlight-like patterns on the plates belonging to a particular table. Plates assigned to a tray would be automatically bumped from the alley screen when a tray was picked up off the counter to be run to the dining room. When a plate's ID is picked up returning to the dishwashing area, the inventory is recorded accordingly.
-- fogfreak, Feb 05 2009

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