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Nation's Restaurant News,  Oct 8, 2007  by Mina Williams

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ATLANTA -- As thousands of foodservice operators, educators and vendors of equipment and technology press the flesh, learn the lessons and trod the halls of the co-located NAFEM Show 2007 and 12th annual FS/TEC conference, many will be looking for signs of "protocol" progress.

The NAFEM Show, by the North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers of Chicago, is Oct. 11-13 at the Georgia World Congress Center here. Typically, more than 20,000 foodservice professionals and representatives of 600-plus exhibitors attend the event, where work on the "NAFEM Data Protocol" has occurred for years, if only informally at some meetings.

Operator interest in the technical world of protocols is tied to their future potential to save money by supporting the convergence of computers, networks and equipment. Emerging protocols and specifications will help operators "get the data and information they need to run their foodservice operations more efficiently and effectively," said Richard Mader, executive director of the Association for Retail Technology Standards.

ARTS is a division of the National Retail Federation and is collaborating with NAFEM on protocol development.

Over the past decade, NAFEM and its member manufacturers have been challenged to piece together an integration program for foodservice equipment and technology that would operate with a centralized computer network using a single standardized language. The result of that work is the NAFEM Data Protocol, a standard based on existing and open Internet protocols. The nonproprietary protocol enables bidirectional communication with an industrywide set of rules for the exchange of data between independent pieces of equipment and personal computers.

The NAFEM Protocol, if implemented by all parties in the supply and users chains and supported by specialized software applications, would give operators the ability to network and then control and monitor equipment. It also would support automating the management processes for inventory, labor, food safety and energy consumption.

Further pressing for the power of technology to be incorporated into the entire foodservice environment, NAFEM and ARTS recently announced the development of a technical specification linking communications between point-of-service and commercial kitchen equipment. This new ProCon Technical Specification, which incorporates the NAFEM Data Protocol, sets data protocol conversion standards for messages between XML-based systems, including point-of-sale terminals and payment systems, and Simple Network Markup Protocol-based food service equipment, including refrigerators and fryers.

"By providing the means to link commercial kitchen equipment and back-office systems on a network, ARTS and NAFEM have addressed one of the operator community's primary communication goals," said NAFEM president Carol Wallace, president and chief executive of Cooper-Atkins Corp., of Middlefield, Conn.

Industry experts agree that by automating management processes in the areas of inventory, labor, food safety and energy consumption, operators will optimize communications between back-of-the-house equipment operations and front-of-the-house systems. Such protocols also can help to identify and lessen operational inefficiencies, improving profit margins.

"We have been requested by chains to find a solution for foodservice equipment to be linked to," said NAFEM director of member services Charlie Souhrada. "For example, a retailer with a food court needs to program and monitor cooking and storing of food, external lighting, [heating-ventilation-air conditioning] and POS systems. All of these can operate off a centralized system using the protocol."

The protocol, if fully realized, also would enable multitasking. Cash register terminals could serve as training devices, with instructions and updates viewed at the stroke of a key.

"In an industry with high turnover, instruction on how to clean equipment and what to look for to prevent equipment trouble, or video presentations that can all run on the cash register computer terminals, [are boons] to business," Souhrada said. "We are hoping to get to a point where operators can control and monitor inventory and use the standardized system as a suggestive selling tool. There will come a time when counter associates will receive alerts from the kitchen equipment to tell customers that the fries are hot and ready."

Work continues at NAFEM to implement software protocols for monitoring equipment. "Keeping food inventory safe and wholesome is key," Souhrada said. "If a walk-in fails, an alert would be sent to a pager or cell phone to help operators manage food safety, energy and inventory." Such capabilities also can help cut energy usage, Souhrada added: "Next to food and labor, energy is up there in terms of overhead."

With continued convergence enabled by the new protocol, ice makers could be programmed to operate at night when utility rates are lower and put into a holding cycle during peak price times. Fryers' energy usage, cook cycles and temperatures could be monitored, and have their temperatures and cook cycles adjusted remotely.