Domino’s is a pizza delivery powerhouse. From the opening of its first restaurant in 1960, Domino’s focus on delivery and deals like the (now-defunct) pizza in 30-minutes or less guarantee has made it the third-largest pizza chain in the U.S.

Despite the rise of third-party delivery services, Domino’s has retained its fleet of delivery drivers to eliminate cost inefficiencies and maintain control over product quality. 

How does Domino’s make their pizza operations run smoothly? Technology. 

The pizza chain built the Pulse Point-of-Sale (POS) system to manage their restaurant operations. Domino’s Pulse was launched when pizza was ordered exclusively over the phone and has been updated over time to comply with changing digital security and business requirements.

How Domino’s Monitors the Pulse of Restaurant Operations

Pulse is a custom POS system supporting customer ordering and restaurant management functions. Using a single POS system to connect its over 20,000 stores in 90 international markets helps Domino’s roll out new functionalities at scale. Their proprietary software allows data-supported experimentation to optimize store operations, menu offerings, and marketing strategies, leading to the creation of now-standard features like the Domino’s Pizza Tracker.

Domino’s continues to evolve its Pulse software over time too.

From the launch of Pulse Classic, Domino’s has released two new versions of the Pulse system: Pulse Evolution in 2009 and Next Gen Pulse in 2023. It is now developing a proprietary operating system, Dom.OS, to support additional features and connected products.

Domino’s relies on connected products to keep orders organized, customers happy, and restaurants functioning efficiently. The complete Pulse system, both software and hardware, is used by every employee in a Domino’s store including franchisees, managers, in-store team members, and delivery drivers. Terminals at key points in the order process track progress for customers and restaurant teams from order entry through making and delivery while applications provide support for inventory, finance, and workforce management.

So how does Domino’s ensure its Pulse POS provides the best experience?

By keeping its system customer-focused, current, running, and connected.

Using Pulse POS to Stay Customer-Focused

Domino’s Pulse and related connected products optimize restaurant management tasks, freeing up time for Domino’s staff to focus on creating a positive experience. The system handles front- and back-of-house functions classified by six key applications:

1. Order entry in the front-of-store POS system
2. Makeline pizza assembly interface
3. Dispatch interface to schedule and track delivery orders
4. Inventory management
5. Finance management
6. Workforce management

Pulse provides support for time-consuming management tasks like ordering ingredients, financials, and scheduling so time and resources can be spent building customer relationships. The system’s order taking and tracking capabilities cement the customer service experience by efficiently managing the order process from submission through delivery, communicating the status of individual orders to both customers and restaurant staff.

Many Domino’s technology improvements powered by Pulse focus on improving ease of ordering. For example, registered customers can save their favorite pizzas to easily reorder at the touch of a button. Then the Pizza Tracker lets customers monitor their order’s progress in real-time providing transparency and reducing wait-time anxiety. The company is even exploring an AI-powered personal pizza ordering assistant to further streamline the ordering process.

Its online ordering interface and mobile application support extensive order customizations with over 34 million potential combinations. But the usual channels aren’t the only way to order a Domino’s pizza. Domino’s makes a point to meet customers where they are, whether in a Ford car, watching a Samsung Smart TV, over text message, or even, at one point, on 𝕏 (formerly known as Twitter) using only an emoji.

The pizza chain’s goal to personalize and simplify the ordering process recently expanded to include Pinpoint Delivery, an avenue for customers to order pizza to specific GPS coordinates. No longer will pizza lovers go hungry at the park, beach, or baseball game. Pinpoint Delivery lets hungry customers order a pizza and drop a pin without an address. Then they can track their delivery driver’s progress along the way. When the pizza arrives, the customer identifies themselves by activating a visual signal on their phone.

These innovations have earned the loyalty of Domino’s customers, and the restaurant has taken advantage. In 2023, Domino’s relaunched its loyalty program to engage infrequent customers. The related “Emergency Pizza” promotion gave loyalty program members a one-time free pizza to claim within 30 days of a qualifying purchase and resulted in a surge of orders and millions of new loyalty members. 

Domino’s Pulse is the key to making all these customer-focused innovations possible — having a POS that’s tailored to their connected product ecosystem.

Keeping Domino’s Technology Up-to-Date

Domino’s aims to leverage emerging technology like generative AI and cloud computing. They work to evolve the Pulse POS system to stay ahead of any pizza delivery competitors. 

To develop new technologies, Domino’s often partners with Microsoft, even establishing a collaborative Innovation Lab where Domino’s pizza experts and Microsoft’s technology experts can work together with engineers to brainstorm and develop new features.

The Microsoft partnership began with the second-generation Pulse system when the chain was focused on lowering startup and maintenance costs. Microsoft’s ecosystem was able to simplify and lower the cost of store-level technology and introduced several tools to more efficiently manage system updates.

Though the chain has developed the aforementioned AI pizza-ordering assistant, most of Domino’s investment in AI capability is centered on streamlining store operations, specifically a second AI assistant designed to help store managers save time on daily tasks. The assistant will support inventory management, ingredient ordering, staff scheduling, and other day-to-day operations management. This focus on developing new and innovative technology features keeps Domino’s at the forefront of digital customer service and restaurant management.

Pizza Can’t Wait: Don’t “POS” for Downtime

When restaurant operations depend on technology, any malfunction or downtime means the business can’t operate.

So, the Pulse POS system is also designed to reduce system failures and related downtime. The combination of Pulse software and network-enabled hardware keeps each restaurant up and running with the latest technology updates and necessary devices.

For example, Pulse Classic originally relied on fully functional computer workstations that needed to be individually updated. However, its second-generation update introduced “thin” solid-state workstations. These thin workstations required less processing power. They also didn’t need additional components like hard drives or cooling fans, making them less expensive than Pulse Classic’s PCs. 

Instead, thin workstations on the front line, makeline, and dispatch stations function via applications provided by a single hard drive connected to Domino’s central server by virtual machine. This connected infrastructure allows software updates to be pushed to all workstations when the virtual machine is updated, reducing overhead and management burden. The fewer number of on-site hard drives also encourages Domino’s data security compliance because data cannot be stored on individual workstations or corrupted by workstation issues.

In case of failure, Domino’s stores are required to carry a backup hard drive that can be operational in 30 minutes or less to keep technology functioning.

(That’s a smart way to overcome remote device downtime!)

Similarly, many restaurants keep backup workstations on hand which can be active in as little as 10 minutes to increase order capacity or replace existing hardware when it is broken or unexpectedly offline.

Domino’s has built a flexible and adaptable system of connected products to ensure the success of individual stores and the entire pizza chain.

Keep Your QSR Tech Connected

Their approach is not without hiccups: Domino's employees are known to share harrowing tales about the Pulse POS system misbehaving. Still, Domino's approach exemplifies the power of remote monitoring and management capabilities for connected products like POS systems.

Other quick-service restaurants (QSRs) can emulate Domino's approach by investing in POS and related systems that integrate various operational functions, adopt emerging technologies like AI for better management, and prioritize seamless customer interactions. By creating a connected ecosystem like Domino’s, QSRs can not only improve service quality but also drive growth and customer engagement.

At Canopy, we keep our eye on tech-forward restaurants to share learnings and inspiration for QSRs building their own systems of connected products. Whether you’re creating a bespoke solution like Chick-fil-A or Domino’s, or taking advantage of out-of-the-box software and devices, our platform gives you the ability to remotely monitor and manage devices.

If you’re looking for a centralized view of your connected products, reach out. Not ready to talk? Learn more about Canopy’s remote device monitoring, management, and automation capabilities.