New Remote Locking Technology Helps Oregon Vendor Balance Safety & Sales
Royal Vending is in full-deployment mode after successful test runs with FreshIQ and FreshTraq, a micromarket health lock and remote monitoring system.
Ryan Harrington started a vending business 12 years ago. With just a couple of traditional vending machines, it was initially more of a side project. About five years into it, however, Harrington began seeing the potential to make it a full-time career.
“That’s when I started to see technology changing,” says Harrington, owner of Royal Vending in Portland, Oregon. “I started seeing micromarkets coming into play with fresh food options and healthier options.”
Today roughly 75% of Royal Vending’s revenue comes from micromarkets. With business continuing to flourish, Harrington needed a way to better manage his growing network of micromarkets. He needed a tool that would help him balance both customer safety and sales opportunity.
Harrington had experimented with temperature sensors in the past. Unfortunately, they only reported temperature data but couldn’t lock a cooler. Secondly, the sensors couldn’t identify patterns that led to temporary rises in temperature, such as when a cooler is opened and closed repeatedly during the lunch hour. That led to a barrage of false alarms that proved to be more distraction than anything. Finally, the dummy lock on the cooler would lock when the cooler itself sensed a rise in temperature.
“Our first priority is keeping our customers safe,” Harrington emphasizes. “But there is also an ROI component. When a cooler locks and we don’t know it, that door can stay locked for a long time. We can’t get there to refresh the food and start generating sales if we don’t know it’s locked.”
Sense, lock, report and resolve – from anywhere
Back in January, Mike Levi joined Royal Vending as operations manager. He has spearheaded the installation of some new technology that Harrington says is already helping to balance safety and sales.
FreshTraq is a temperature sensor you install on any existing cooler. “It also has a health lock that will lock the door if the temperature climbs into a dangerous range for food,” Harrington points out.
This is where another new product Harrington has invested in, FreshIQ, comes into play. FreshIQ allows Harrington and his team to monitor their coolers remotely through a web-based app. “We can see where an event happened, identify the temperature prior to the event, and make a decision on how to resolve it,” Harrington says. “We can even unlock the cooler remotely if we determine that it is safe to do so.”
Because of the steady stream of data FreshIQ provides, Harrington says they’ve also been able to see that a cooler is failing before a locking event takes place. That helps his team head off cooler failures before downtime and lost sales ensue.
Readings on false events are also presented. “With our old health lock coolers, if the driver was filling a micromarket and the door was open a while, that cooler door would often lock once the driver closed it and left. But now the driver is gone. We might not find out that the cooler locked until the driver goes back a day or two later, or if the client happens to call us.”
Helping to weed out those types of false positives has helped Royal Vending save a lot of time and lost sales. “FreshTraq has an algorithm to learn the times of day when cooler doors are opening and closing more, trying to reduce the false locking periods and false unsafe notifications,” Harrington says.
When a cooler door does get locked, Royal Vending’s leadership team receives emails and text messages. “Then we’re able to get on it right away to ensure that it’s not a false lock,” Harrington says. “If it isn’t a false lock, we can reach out to the nearest driver to send them to the location, remove the food and call in the repair.”
Royal Vending began testing roughly a dozen coolers early this year. All systems continue to run smoothly, encouraging Harrington and Levi to kick it into full-deployment mode. “It is a process, but we’re working on it,” Harrington says. “Our plan is to be using this system on every one of our food coolers, and possibly even our beverage coolers.”
Royal Vending is in full-deployment mode after successful test runs with FreshIQ and FreshTraq, a micromarket health lock and remote monitoring system.
Ryan Harrington started a vending business 12 years ago. With just a couple of traditional vending machines, it was initially more of a side project. About five years into it, however, Harrington began seeing the potential to make it a full-time career.
“That’s when I started to see technology changing,” says Harrington, owner of Royal Vending in Portland, Oregon. “I started seeing micromarkets coming into play with fresh food options and healthier options.”
Today roughly 75% of Royal Vending’s revenue comes from micromarkets. With business continuing to flourish, Harrington needed a way to better manage his growing network of micromarkets. He needed a tool that would help him balance both customer safety and sales opportunity.
Harrington had experimented with temperature sensors in the past. Unfortunately, they only reported temperature data but couldn’t lock a cooler. Secondly, the sensors couldn’t identify patterns that led to temporary rises in temperature, such as when a cooler is opened and closed repeatedly during the lunch hour. That led to a barrage of false alarms that proved to be more distraction than anything. Finally, the dummy lock on the cooler would lock when the cooler itself sensed a rise in temperature.
“Our first priority is keeping our customers safe,” Harrington emphasizes. “But there is also an ROI component. When a cooler locks and we don’t know it, that door can stay locked for a long time. We can’t get there to refresh the food and start generating sales if we don’t know it’s locked.”
Sense, lock, report and resolve – from anywhere
Back in January, Mike Levi joined Royal Vending as operations manager. He has spearheaded the installation of some new technology that Harrington says is already helping to balance safety and sales.
FreshTraq is a temperature sensor you install on any existing cooler. “It also has a health lock that will lock the door if the temperature climbs into a dangerous range for food,” Harrington points out.
This is where another new product Harrington has invested in, FreshIQ, comes into play. FreshIQ allows Harrington and his team to monitor their coolers remotely through a web-based app. “We can see where an event happened, identify the temperature prior to the event, and make a decision on how to resolve it,” Harrington says. “We can even unlock the cooler remotely if we determine that it is safe to do so.”
Because of the steady stream of data FreshIQ provides, Harrington says they’ve also been able to see that a cooler is failing before a locking event takes place. That helps his team head off cooler failures before downtime and lost sales ensue.
Readings on false events are also presented. “With our old health lock coolers, if the driver was filling a micromarket and the door was open a while, that cooler door would often lock once the driver closed it and left. But now the driver is gone. We might not find out that the cooler locked until the driver goes back a day or two later, or if the client happens to call us.”
Helping to weed out those types of false positives has helped Royal Vending save a lot of time and lost sales. “FreshTraq has an algorithm to learn the times of day when cooler doors are opening and closing more, trying to reduce the false locking periods and false unsafe notifications,” Harrington says.
When a cooler door does get locked, Royal Vending’s leadership team receives emails and text messages. “Then we’re able to get on it right away to ensure that it’s not a false lock,” Harrington says. “If it isn’t a false lock, we can reach out to the nearest driver to send them to the location, remove the food and call in the repair.”
Royal Vending began testing roughly a dozen coolers early this year. All systems continue to run smoothly, encouraging Harrington and Levi to kick it into full-deployment mode. “It is a process, but we’re working on it,” Harrington says. “Our plan is to be using this system on every one of our food coolers, and possibly even our beverage coolers.”
