McDonald's is testing a new idea to make fast food even faster.

The company is testing self-service kiosks around the country where customers can use a push-button system to place their own orders, a move that could eventually become standard at many of its restaurants, an executive told Reuters.

The technology lets customers place their orders on a touch screen and either pick their food up at a separate area or wait to have it brought to their table.

The self-ordering technology is one of several initiatives the world's largest fast-food company is taking to improve service in the face of slowing sales and increasing competition.

The kiosk system has been or is being tested at McDonald's franchises in Denver, Raleigh, N.C., and the Chicago area.

The stores also give customers the option of placing orders the old-fashioned way with cashiers.

Franchisee John Lardas is testing the system at his McDonald's in St. Charles, Ill., outside of Chicago.

He's installed four self-ordering kiosks.

``You see no lines because people are spreading themselves out,'' Lardas told Reuters.

Lardas said that about 70 percent of his customers use the self-service system.

"It's basically all about choice, about allowing our customers the opportunity to use McDonald's the way they want to," Gene Mitchell, a senior director of operations with the company, told Reuters. "It's all done with pictures. It's very easy for the customer to use."

Similar to the self service systems used by banks and major airlines, a customer enters an order on the kiosk, which then prints a receipt used to claim the food.

Consumers, he said, especially like the test kiosks that McDonald's has installed in some of its Play Place playgrounds.

Those machines let parents and their kids enter orders and have them delivered directly to their tables, eliminating the need to stand in line with small children.