But as I sat there eating my burrito, I realized: that can\u2019t be right.<\/p>\n
Automotive assembly lines have been around for over a century, and traditional fast food companies have been around since the McDonald brothers franchised their Golden Arches in the mid-1950s. Even Subway, a combination of fast food and assembly line pick-and-choose ordering, is decades old.<\/p>\n
What happened recently that caused this shift to an on-demand, made to order, assembly-line-on-display approach to food preparation and delivery?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when it occurred to me \u2013 this paradigm change wasn\u2019t driven by new technology or even a new idea, per se. It was driven by a change in the market, an attitude in the consumer.<\/p>\n
In a culture driven by the expectation that your needs and wants will be instantly met, it was a natural progression that it would affect the food marketplace. The solution didn\u2019t change first: it was the problem that changed.<\/p>\n
This kind of paradigm change doesn\u2019t stop at food, though \u2013 there\u2019s a growing marketplace of customers wanting their needs met in specific ways. Technology ended up coming along for the ride to meet those needs.<\/p>\n Hungry patrons want quality food they\u2019re confident will be prepared to their liking, no matter where they are. They want a reasonable amount of variability and freshness, and they\u2019re willing to go to a restaurant that specializes in whatever they\u2019re hungry for to get it. Restaurant owners and entrepreneurs are just selecting the best paradigm available to meet the customer needs in both quality and profitability.<\/p>\n This whole experience got me thinking about the concept of paradigm changes and shifts in the age of digitalization<\/a>. Mass production is shifting to mass customization<\/a>, not because it suddenly became available, but because customers and the market are demanding it.<\/p>\n If we look at this concept in terms of application software, some may say we have actually gone full circle. It started with mainframes, but then we moved to client servers. Now we\u2019re back to the cloud.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not really about breakthrough technology upending existing paradigms and driving the market. It isn\u2019t about inventing something new out of thin air.<\/p>\n![\"Paradigm](\"http:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2019\/09\/Paradigm-Changes_Paradigm-Shifts-1.png\" "\\"Paradigm")
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