01 — Routing
Does it route work to the right station?
A KDS that puts every order on every screen is not a KDS — it is a list. Real KDS routing knows that a grill item goes to the grill, a drink goes to the bar, and the dispatch screen needs the whole order for handoff. Routing is the most important question.
- Can items route by product (grill, fry, drinks, assembly)?
- Can items route by service type (dine-in, takeaway, delivery)?
- Can items route by both, with rules layered cleanly?
- How are courses handled — fire on main, manual fire, all-day?
02 — Timing
How does it surface late tickets?
The job of a KDS is to make “this ticket is late” impossible to ignore. Colour changes, timers, escalation alerts — all the visual cues that make a busy chef pause before flipping the next pan.
- How are late tickets surfaced (colour, timer, badge, sound)?
- Can escalation rules be set (after 8 min flash, after 12 min sound)?
- Are timers tied to the right benchmark — order time, fire time, or station-specific?
- How are tickets pinned for VIP, allergen or special-handling cases?
03 — Bumping
What happens when an item is bumped?
Bumping an item should not be a local event — it should update the floor, the dispatch view and (often) the customer. A KDS that bumps only on its own screen is a KDS that has not finished the job.
- Does bumping update the floor view, dispatch and customer notification?
- Can a bumped item be unbumped if a mistake is caught quickly?
- Are partial bumps possible (one item from a multi-item ticket)?
- How is bumping audited — by whom, when, on which station?
04 — POS integration
Is the KDS reading the same order as the till?
A KDS bolted onto a separate till stack is a recipe for the kitchen seeing one version of the order and the floor seeing another. The integration question is not “does it work?” — it is “does it always show exactly what the till took?”
- Is the KDS reading the same order record as the POS?
- How are modifier changes after fire handled?
- How are voids and refunds reflected on the kitchen screens?
- How are split or merged tickets handled?
05 — Service types
Does it know dine-in from delivery?
A dine-in main needs to land hot on a plate. A delivery main needs to land hot in a bag. A takeaway needs to be ready when the customer walks in. The KDS should know which is which and time them differently.
- Are dine-in, takeaway, delivery and collection visibly distinct?
- Can timing be tuned per service type?
- How are delivery-app orders prioritised against dine-in?
- How are pickup ETAs handled for collection orders?
06 — Hardware
Will it survive a kitchen?
A kitchen is hot, wet and busy. The screens take steam, oil and the occasional spatula. Ask about the hardware before the install — the wrong screen in the wrong place is an expensive mistake.
- Are screens rated for kitchen environments (heat, splash, glove-friendly)?
- Can they be touched with wet or gloved hands?
- How are screens mounted — bracket options, viewing angles, cable runs?
- What is the warranty and replacement model when a screen fails?
07 — Network resilience
What happens when the network drops?
A KDS that goes blank because the WiFi flickered is a KDS that loses tickets. Ask how it handles brief outages, what it shows when offline, and how it recovers when the network comes back.
- Does the KDS hold its current ticket list when the network drops?
- How are new orders handled during an outage?
- How is the state reconciled when the connection returns?
- What is the failover model — local cache, local server, none?
08 — Reporting
Can you read prep times after service?
Prep-time reporting is what turns a KDS from a screen into a coaching tool. After service, the team should be able to see which items, which stations and which periods consistently ran long — and use that to plan tomorrow.
- Is prep time recorded per item, per station, per ticket?
- Can prep times be compared across shifts or weeks?
- Are bottlenecks visible (one station consistently late)?
- Can a head chef see this without rebuilding from receipts?
SUMMARY
The shape of it.
A KDS earns its place by making busy services calmer — not by adding another screen. If the KDS you are evaluating cannot answer routing, timing, bumping and resilience clearly, it will not survive a Saturday night. Test it on your own service before it gets a permanent home.