Vending Machine Management

What is Vending Machine Management ?

AggreGate is often the core of a vending machine network operation. All networked self-service devices are connected to the AggreGate server for telemetry collection and cash-free centralized payments.

In a corporate HQ, you can see a large map of the city/area with your vending machines marked on it. You can easily code machines by color by revenue, sales by item, current inventory, health status, and custom efficiency KPIs.

When a vending machine runs out of stock, your service agents receive an automatic email or SMS message and can then refuel it immediately as efficiently as possible. If a vending machine breaks down, your repair team will receive an immediate notification that includes a description of the problem (such as the machine's internal error code and its friendly definition).

If you sell perishable products, your machine automatically alerts system operators that their inventory is about to expire. It even prompts the operator's OK to start a special sale, and when the OK is given, prices of that specific type of sandwich will drop for it to be sold before it expires.

You have a number of custom reports, such as best-selling machines, top selling items, the slowest items to move, and areas in the city where more breaks and damage to the machines occur (i.e. where you have the most service calls). This provides an unprecedented level of control and efficiency.

AggreGate Benefits for Vending

The AggreGate platform brings a number of technological benefits compared to out-of-the-box vending machine management systems:

• Quickly connects to vending machines by running the Java, C/C++ or .NET open source AggreGate Agent implementation
• Allows batch machine configuration and content distribution (promotions, price updates)
• Collects statistics on sales, money, breakdowns and inventories
• Automatically starts maintenance to block operations until all necessary actions are taken by the service team
• Notifies support staff and maintenance engineers of issues using email, SMS, or other methods
• Tracks custom asset information (machine number and location, contact of a responsible person)
• Supports multi-tenancy and different access permissions for administrators, support staff, vendors, and operators
• Connects self-service devices with custom hardware using programmable hardware agents or software drivers
• Remotely monitors your machines to reduce the number of on-premises service visits
• Schedules automated device operations, such as self-testing
• Offers a wide range of integrated tools for sales analysis and business intelligence
• Stores and allows you to export sales operations and incident history
• Manages inventory levels, costs/supplier quality, product expiration dates
• Integrates with accounting applications using open source APIs

Business Benefits

• Reduced lack of inventory
• Faster implementation of new trade policies
• Predictive maintenance
• Reloading visits and supply chain optimization
• Better assortment segmentation
• Increased level of service and profitability

Controllers of vending machines

Tibbo Project System offers a unique architecture for building custom sales machine controllers. A typical driver will not require any hardware design work and will support the following:

• Availability in the form of a PCB (for installation inside a machine) or a coated device (for external installation)
• Ethernet, GPRS and Wi-Fi interfaces
• Additional digital and analog E/O, high-power transmissions for emergency restarts of the machine and other peripherals
• Wide temperature range/operational humidity
• Power and status LEDs
• MDB interface (master and slave) to monitor and control payment devices and start sales from a command center
• Optional beep for confirmation of button-initiated operations
• ETA-DTS interface (DEX and DDCMP) for reading machine statistics and real-time routing to the server
• Optional liquid crystal display (LCD)
• Credit card and RFID card readers for the implementation of personalized payment schemes
• Over-the-air firmware update capabilities
• Customizable control buttons
• Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery for operation without an external source (power failure report, potential theft report)
• Standard Open Source AggreGate agent running inside a device

System requirements:

CPU: 1.8 GHz dual core processor

RAM: 2 GB

HDD / SSD: 50 GB of free space on the main drive

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 8 32-bit, Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit and Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit

Resolution: 1024×768