When building a Smart Vending solution, we aimed to solve problems that affect a vending machine owner’s bottom line. To do this, we needed to understand when items were sold out and when machines failed — generating alarms so these problems could eventually be resolved. We had to know the location of the machines as well as the stock items that required replenishment so drivers could act fast before items were sold out (resulting in lost revenue). Finally, we had to monitor overall cash collected and the machine performance according to location. By doing this, we could improve the efficiency of servicing and stocking machines and help the business owner build a better plan for assigning resources.

The Axeda Platform includes out-of-the-box features for building an M2M application. Smart Vending is equipped with the following features based on Axeda Platform functionality:

• View Status of Vending Machines
  • Filterable List of Machines
    – Visibility determined by the asset group and user group security model
  • Location Map
    – Mobile location tracking
• Monitor Health/Status
  • Alarm Dashboard
    – Expression rules
  • Search for Alarms
    – Alarm management
• Manage Alerts
  • Item sell-outs
  • Door open/door closed/door unlocked
  • Inventory empty/low
  • Other malfunctions
    – Alarm management and expression rules
• Track Activity
  • Vends
  • Log each sale (price, item)
    – Extended Objects API
• Track Cash
  • Track purchases in machine (expected cash)
  • Reconcile cash collected by driver/operator (actual cash)
    – Cloud-based scripting
• Manage Prices
  • View current pricing and planogram (items in slots)
    – Extended Objects API
• Manage Inventory
  • Real-time inventory status
    – Cloud-based scripting
• Reports & Dashboards
  • Sales reports by region, manufacturer, customer, route, machine, item
    – Custom app development and hosting capability