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INVENTORY TRACKING IMPORTANT FOR SOME

The efficient servicing of equipment is one of the benefits of remote monitoring that has already been used in vending. In the OCS business, the need to track inventory at the machine level has another purpose: verifying the specific product in the machine. OCS operators, unlike their vending brethren, rely on the location to fill the machine with product. Hence, OCS operators have always been vulnerable to location personnel filling the hopper with products purchased elsewhere.

In the OCS universe, remote monitoring of machine activity can provide a “policing” function.

While not all OCS operators believe that unauthorized product use is a big problem, remote monitoring offers other benefits as well.

Depending on the technology used, the data can provide item-level consumption data. The need for such data has not been seen as critical in OCS since coffee brewers have historically carried a small number of selections in comparison to vending machines.

However, the proliferation of multi-selection machines has changed this in recent years. With 12 selections available in many single-cup brewers, the most profitable mix can present a challenge for operators, especially as new blends are introduced.

“It gets us closer to consumer preferences,” said Aramark’s Bleahen. “That kind of information is invaluable.”

MANUFACTURERS ADAPT CASHLESS CAPABILITY

A handful of OCS brewer manufacturers have incorporated radio frequency identification (RFID) into their payment mechanisms, some of which have been demonstrated at vending and OCS trade shows. RFID provides a network for authorizing credit and debit purchases and for transmitting data from the machine to a data collection device.

RFID technology is not new to coffee brewers. It has been used to ensure the proper timing brewing functions in some machines. Some equipment experts argue that this has been technology’s most important contribution to OCS, as it ensures a level of product quality.

The most extensive testing involving RFID technology for cashless purchases and remote data retrieval in OCS equipment has been the Starbucks “E-Cup.”

Starbucks Corp. has adapted USA Technologies’ ePort to its proprietary single-cup brewer, the “I-Cup,” to include cashless transaction capability. The ePort converts the traditional Starbucks “I-Cup” into an “E-Cup.” The E-Cup comes with an ePort card reader that accepts both magnetic stripe and contactless cards. All of the ePorts are connected to the USA Technologies network, via the AT&T GSM network, where the credit and debit card transactions are processed.