Flex Catering launches first ever catering KDS (Kitchen Display System)

A Kitchen Display System (KDS) is a digital screen that replaces printed or handwritten ticket orders in restaurants and food businesses. It connects the restaurant’s point-of-sale (POS) system directly to the kitchen, allowing for live and updated information to flow through to the kitchen staff.

KDS has been around for several years and can be found at major fast food chains. The kitchen staff prepare the meals based on what shows on the screen. No news here.

However, Flex Catering Software brings a new type of KDS. It is purposely built for corporate caterers and restaurants chains. Customers can place orders online and the order will automatically be displayed in the kitchen display system. In addition, it can communicate with the delivery team once the order is ready. It is a true integration between online ordering and production. There are obvious business rules configuration and approval processes in place, but the overall KDS is a complete solution for catering and food delivery.

Corporate caterers and restaurants can also take great benefit of a KDS once it optimises the communication between management and the kitchen. Rather than receiving paper reports grouping orders or individual ticket orders, the kitchen staff can now interact with a dynamic screen that provides full order information in an organised manner. Moreover, the kitchen staff can mark the order as completed directly via the KDS, minimising the need for data entry and internal communication breakdown.

The Flex Catering KDS was built taking into consideration restaurant chains with multiple locations. Orders received from a centralised website can be distributed to the respective store location’s KDS, so the store only sees and processes its own orders.

The beauty about the Flex Catering KDS is that it works on iPad and Android tablets. This allows the caterer and restaurants to select its own hardware. Flex Catering is also bringing a range of hardware to support the KDS such as arms, stands and printers.

In catering services, the three big operational challenges are online ordering, integration between ordering and kitchen and delivery. To support growth and operational needs, Flex Catering software is bringing technological solutions to optimise the processes and increase efficiency around catering services and online ordering of food.

Flex Catering officially launched the catering KDS at Catersource 2020 in Las Vegas.