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 the telemetry collection and centralized cashless payments.
In a corporate HQ, you can see a large city/area map with your vending machines marked on it. You can easily color-code machines by the revenue, per-item sales, current stocks, health status, and custom efficiency KPIs.
When a vending machine runs out of stock, your service agents get an automatic e-mail or SMS message and will then be able to immediately restock it in the most efficient way possible. If a vending machine breaks, your repair crew will get an immediate notification that includes a description of the problem (such as the machine's internal error code and its human-friendly definition).
If you sell perishable goods, your machine automatically alerts the system operators that it has stock which is about to expire. It even requests the operator's OK to begin a special sale, and when the OK is given, the prices for that specific sandwich type will go down so that it would sell before it expires.
You have a number of customized reports, such as best-selling machines, best-selling items, the slowest items to move, and areas in the city where the most breakage and damage occurs to machines (i.e, where you have the biggest number of service calls). This gives you an unprecedented level of control and efficiency.
Benefits of AggreGate for Vending
AggreGate Platform brings a number of technological benefits comparing to the out-of-the-box vending machine management systems:
| Quickly connects vending machines by running the open-source Java, C/C++ or .NET implementation of the AggreGate Agent | Connects self-service devices with the custom hardware using programmable hardware Agents or software drivers |
| Enables the batch machine configuration and content distribution (promotions, price updates, etc.) | Remotely monitors your machines to reduce the number of onsite service visits |
| Collects the statistics about sales, cash, breakdowns, and stocks | Schedules the automated device operations, such as self-testing |
| Auto-initiates the maintenance to block operations until all necessary actions are performed by the service staff | Delivers a wide range of built-in tools for the sales analytics and business intelligence |
| Notifies the support staff and maintenance engineers about the problems using e-mail, SMS or other methods | Stores and allows to export the sales operations and incident history |
| Tracks the custom asset information (machine number and its location, contact of a responsible person, etc.) | Manages the stock levels, supplier costs/quality, product expiration dates, etc. |
| Supports multi-tenancy and different access permissions for the administrators, support personnel, suppliers, and operators | Integrates with the accounting applications using open-source APIs |
Business Benefits
| Out-of-stock reduction | Predictive maintenance | Improved assortment segmentation |
| Faster implementation of new commercial policies | Refill visits and supply chain optimization | Increased service level and profitability |
Vending Machine Controllers
Tibbo Project System provides a unique architecture for building the custom-tailored vending machine controllers. A typical controller won't require any hardware design work and will support the following:
| Availability in a form of a PCB (for installing inside a machine) or a cased device (for external installation) | ETA-DTS interface (DEX and DDCMP) for the machine statistics reading and real-time forwarding to the server |
| Ethernet, GPRS, and Wi-Fi interfaces | Optional liquid crystal display (LCD) |
| Additional digital and analog I/O, high-power relays for emergency machine restarts, and other periphery | Credit card and RFID card readers for implementing the custom payment schemes |
| Wide operating temperature/humidity range | Over-the-air firmware upgrade capabilities |
| Power and status LEDs | Customizable control buttons |
| MDB interface (master and slave) for monitoring and controlling the payment devices and initiating the vends from a command center | Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery for the operation without an external supply (power failure reporting, potential theft reporting, etc.) |
| Optional beeper for confirmation of the button-initiated operations | Standard open-source AggreGate Agent running inside a device |
Rebrandable Platform for Vending Machine OEMs
We provide our OEM partners with an open-source SDK for extending the Platform with custom vending data storage, processing and visualization plugins.
AggreGate IoT Platform is initially designed to be rebranded and redistributed under the OEM contracts.
