Cantaloupe Systems has been awarded U.S. patent number 7,894,938 for its Vending Machine Service Scheduling system. A fundamental element of the Cantaloupe Retail Optimization Platform (CROP) is the cloud-based, wireless Seed technologies that provide recommendations for optimizing vending machine restocking schedules. By collecting and analyzing inventory and sales data, as well as machine location and the drive time required to restock machines, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based Seed technologies boosts revenues by enabling vending operators to maximize sales, increase customer satisfaction, and cuts costs by eliminating unnecessary calls by service personnel.
“This innovation is a definite game-changer for the $55 billion global vending industry because it fundamentally modernizes how machines are restocked and serviced,” said Mandeep Arora, co-founder and CEO of Cantaloupe Systems in a prepared statement. “Until now, machines were checked regardless of whether or not they needed restocking. With this patented technology, operators upgrade from simple static scheduling to smart dynamic scheduling, enabling them to service machines more efficiently and ensure the right products are in the right machines all the time.”
Cantaloupe System’s Vending Machines Service Scheduling system allows operators to calculate the service priority for individual vending machines based on such criteria as machine location, driving times between machines and the types and quantities of products that need restocking in each machine. Cantaloupe Systems’ Seed technologies allow operators to monitor each machine’s sales and inventory in real time. The newly-patented system divides the machines into subroutes and generates an optimized daily service schedule based on the highest-priority machines. This enables operators to reduce stockouts and eliminate unnecessary service calls while increasing sales per machine through improved retail inventory management.
Cantaloupe Systems has already been granted patents for other elements of the Seed technologies, including its Vending Machine Door Monitoring system (patent number 7,385,504) and Remote Diagnosis and Repair of Vending Machine Communication Failure system (patent number7,325,728). The Vending Machine Door Monitoring system detects the state of a vending machine access door and enables operators to track any unusual activities or malfunctions with the machine. Since the status of the machine is constantly monitored, this system results in lower machine theft rates and less machine downtime. The Remote Diagnosis and Repair of Vending Machine Communication Failure system retrieves operational data from a vending machine controller (DEX file) and transmits data between the vending machine and audit system. This enables operators to monitor and manage all vending machine activities more efficiently and effectively through the Cantaloupe Systems’ Seed Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application.
San Francisco, Calif.-based Cantaloupe Systems, Inc., is the fastest-growing, wireless-enabled vending solutions provider. The company was founded in 2002 by engineers Mandeep Arora, a second-generation vending professional, and Anant Agrawal to provide automated merchandising and business intelligence technology to the $55 billion global vending industry. Installed in individual vending machines, the Cantaloupe Retail Optimization Platform (CROP)™ applies state of the art business intelligence and analytics to remotely-monitored real-time vending sales data to suggest optimized next-best-step business decisions. The result: vending operators know how to generate the greatest revenue and margin from each machine with optimized service efficiencies and the least operational cost. Operators using CROP and Seed® technologies average $35,000 in annual savings per route, can replenish 80 percent more machines per week and can reduce their carbon footprint by 40 percent through the elimination of unnecessary truck travel and smaller loads per truck.
Cantaloupe Systems is backed by Global Environment Fund of Chevy Chase, MD., and Foundation Capital of Menlo Park, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.cantaloupesystems.com.
