Vending Machine Management

Vending machine operators face tight competition, rising merchandise costs, changing consumer preferences and new regulations, making it vitally important to improve efficiency in inventory management, stocking schedules and routes, and equipment repair and maintenance.
With these factors stacked up in one corner, what tools does the vending machine operator have in his or her corner to take them on? Eurotech offers the tools that vending machine operators need.

Eurotech Solution

Eurotech offers a range of proven solutions to resolve issues that are especially problematic for vending machine operators.

Remote machine management
Connecting vending machines to manage them remotely brings opportunities for cost savings in several ways. Through remote management of machines, operators use data from the deployed equipment to design and fine-tune operational processes in real-time. With data about stocking levels, drivers will only go to the locations that are low on merchandise, and they will have with them the precise replacement inventory required. Adjusting prices to pass merchandise price increases along to consumers can happen instantaneously across large geographies. Tracking purchase trends over time allows operators to plan for cyclical business due to time of year, specific events, or any other business driver and to offer promotions and loyalty programs to regular consumers. Eurotech solutions for machine to machine (M2M) communications bring vending machines into the Internet of Things (IoT) era, with rugged hardware for data capture and gateway functions as well as a platform to analyze and act on data across an operators� business.

Caloric information display
Coming from a legacy of integrating the latest displays with embedded computing technology, Eurotech brings deep experience to the design smart display systems to retrofit deployed vending machines at a reasonable cost and with a focus on maximizing the return on investment from installing the equipment. With an interactive display, consumers can select their purchase, verify its calorie counts, and make an informed decision about what to eat.

Cashless payment
Making it easy for consumers to make a purchase from a vending machine means offering options for payment, including cash as well as debit and credit cards, chip and pin cards, and near field communication (NFC)-enabled smartphone applications. Integrate a range of options for payment with the information display, and the cost/benefit analysis becomes even more obvious, with more purchases through cashless options. Eurotech�s strengths in hardware integration for specific applications build on previous designs that include magnetic stripe readers (MSR) as well as RFID and NFC readers.

Highlights

- Short time to market due to EDC approach
- Reliable and detailed data collection
- Wide communication methods supported
- Minimize costs and complexity