Agreed. Watch "The Founder". The amount of workplace efficiency brought by the McDonald brothers would have been, and almost certainly was considered inconceivable by other restaurateurs of the era.
"The system" was so good that it revolutionized the fast food market to the point that almost every attempt to buck the trend is now considered some sort of synonym to 'craft' or 'artisanal'.
(Note: I'm taking the movie as canon, which is basically stupid, but I have a grandfather who would gladly tell you the story of his first McDonald's visit, and how revolutionary it was relative to everywhere else he'd been, but for his passage a few years back.)