Of course McDonalds the brand can do that. They literally _are_ doing that. Someone made a 3rd party troublehsooting tool that solved the majority of problems without needing to call a Taylor tech, and McDonalds corporate disallowed it.
The point is not "can they do this" the point is "is it necessary for them to do it for brand reputational reasons".
The steelman argument I've seen for this state of affairs is that (apparently) the McDonald's machine is much more complicated to allow it to self sanitize/clean every night and only need full disassembly every 2 weeks. The machines used at other chains apparently don't' have this automatic process and must be disassembled and manually cleaned more frequently. That would all be well and good...if it worked. The frequent state of disrepair of McDonalds machines pretty clearly indicates it does not.
They are mandating the use of a low-reliability machine, presumably in the name of lower labor costs (which you'd think you wouldn't have to _mandate_ since the franchiesees probably care more about labor costs than anyone), also mandating an expensive service contract for those machines. I'm just really really skeptical that 3rd party parts would make this situation worse. People already have the impression that McDonals ice creams machines are usually broken. I don't think this opinion is based on a quantitative assesment of uptime, where, if it got 10% worse, their opinion would decrease by 10%.
To try and summarise: I thin your argument that 3rd party parts would create enough of a reliability problem to meaningfully change their reputation, which is _already_ one of lack of reliability (deserved or not), is completely implausable to me.
> They literally _are_ doing that. Someone made a 3rd party troublehsooting tool that solved the majority of problems without needing to call a Taylor tech, and McDonalds corporate disallowed it.
And so what? It's non-standard and non-approved. McDonald's has no idea what that firmware/tool actually does. You (and the makers) claim it was better, but how do you actually know? Maybe it just bypasses safety and sanitary standards McDonald's has set for these machines... giving the appearance in the short-term of being more reliable.
In the end, it's McDonald's who will be sued if someone gets sick from a milkshake. Therefore, they can and will enforce standards, including machines and vendors. Heck, they probably have approved vendors and parts for everything inside a McDonald's, not just the ice cream machines. The toilet paper dispenser even most likely... but surely the stoves, fryers, etc.
Right to Repair has nothing to do with this specific situation. It's about corporate standards set for franchisees.
Additionally, the franchisees aren't even complaining about this. It's customers, like you and me, who are mad we can't get a McFlurry or something.
That's not going to compel any change other than make McDonald's realize they might need more machines per location.
The point is not "can they do this" the point is "is it necessary for them to do it for brand reputational reasons".
The steelman argument I've seen for this state of affairs is that (apparently) the McDonald's machine is much more complicated to allow it to self sanitize/clean every night and only need full disassembly every 2 weeks. The machines used at other chains apparently don't' have this automatic process and must be disassembled and manually cleaned more frequently. That would all be well and good...if it worked. The frequent state of disrepair of McDonalds machines pretty clearly indicates it does not.
They are mandating the use of a low-reliability machine, presumably in the name of lower labor costs (which you'd think you wouldn't have to _mandate_ since the franchiesees probably care more about labor costs than anyone), also mandating an expensive service contract for those machines. I'm just really really skeptical that 3rd party parts would make this situation worse. People already have the impression that McDonals ice creams machines are usually broken. I don't think this opinion is based on a quantitative assesment of uptime, where, if it got 10% worse, their opinion would decrease by 10%.
To try and summarise: I thin your argument that 3rd party parts would create enough of a reliability problem to meaningfully change their reputation, which is _already_ one of lack of reliability (deserved or not), is completely implausable to me.