Echelon / FoundryCulinary practice
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Speaking & workshops

A useful session should change a decision.

Interactive, evidence-led sessions for foodservice leaders deciding where AI, automation, software, or process change belongs—and where it does not.

Flagship interactive session

Workshop / 01

Bring One Restaurant Problem: Leave With an AI Decision.

Around minute five, every participant chooses one real restaurant or foodservice problem. The rest of the session is devoted to making a better decision about that problem.

You are not leaving with a list of AI tools. You are leaving with a decision about one real problem in your operation.
Format
Interactive workshop
Designed for
Restaurant operators and foodservice leaders
Participant outcome
One defensible decision posture

How the room works

One problem moves through a visible decision process.

The format is participatory, but structured. Participants use a simplified Clarity path and keep the operating consequence in view.

  1. Problem
  2. Context
  3. Constraints
  4. Evidence
  5. Options
  6. Risks
  7. Decision posture
  8. Next move

Participants test

  • Repeatability
  • Data availability
  • Consequence of error
  • Reversibility
  • Human verification cost
  • Task frequency
  • Integration burden
  • Expected value

Participants leave with

  1. 01A decision posture
  2. 02A smallest useful experiment
  3. 03A success metric
  4. 04A guardrail
  5. 05A stopping rule

Educational value

Practical without becoming a product pitch.

The session teaches a transferable way to examine AI decisions. No vendor stack is required, and “do nothing” remains a legitimate result.

For operators

A way to move from “we should use AI” to a specific decision tied to one operating problem and one measurable outcome.

For technology leaders

A shared language for data quality, consequence of error, integration burden, human oversight, and system constraints.

For organizers

An interactive room with a concrete participant outcome, grounded in an original decision methodology rather than a product tour.

Speaker

Kevin Miller

Founder & Principal Consultant, Echelon Foundry

AI · Software Engineering · Foodservice Technology

Kevin bridges technical depth, decision methodology, and more than four decades of culinary practice.

His technology background spans software architecture, modernization, AI systems, technical leadership, and decision frameworks. His culinary grounding includes competition, catering, chocolatier work, and long-term informal study. The result is a practical perspective on technology that has to survive the realities of foodservice.

Additional topics

More questions worth putting in the room.

  1. 01

    Stop Automating Bad Processes

  2. 02

    The Hidden Cost of AI

  3. 03

    From AI Pilot to Measurable Value

  4. 04

    Before You Automate: Where AI Actually Belongs in Foodservice

For conference organizers

Looking for a session with a practical outcome?

Share the audience, format, and decision you want participants to be better equipped to make.

Discuss a foodservice problem