HMI for a
Robotic Kitchen

Hyphen is an automated robotic makeline — a physical system that assembles food using motorized hoppers, conveyors, and dispensers. Restaurants program it with their menus and ingredients; it handles the assembly. The design challenge is building software interfaces for a machine operating in one of the most demanding physical environments imaginable: an industrial kitchen at peak service.

As Director of Design I owned the full stack: two customer-facing HMI applications, industrial design of the physical product fascia, the company website, and the design system underpinning all of it. No prior design patterns existed for this category of product.

“Designing HMI for a robotic kitchen means the interface has to work when the kitchen doesn't.”

Traditionally there is no KMS — restaurant chains manage recipes with spreadsheets and pen and paper. The Hyphen KMS replaces that entirely while adding a layer of complexity that doesn't exist elsewhere: when you build a menu, you're simultaneously programming a physical machine. Every ingredient must be assigned to a specific hopper with a physical location on the makeline.

The line build step — the last of four stages — required designing for multiple data types, multiple spatial visualizations of the makeline, and hopper assignment logic on a single page without overwhelming corporate culinary users who are not technical.