Alpha Micro Components Aids Vending Machine Management with Robust Wireless Telemetry

BACKGROUND
As one of its core offerings, Vianet, the wireless telemetry systems specialist, provides devices to the vending industry which transmit data to and from wireless vending machine sites. It has solutions suited to both local operators looking to manage operations more efficiently and save costs, and to brands seeking to integrate point of purchase data into the planning process. These systems include both the hardware for extracting data from vending machines and the application software, which customers use to run their vending businesses.

BRIEF

A key Vianet offering is providing its customers with complete vending management services including remote monitoring, on-line management reports and sales analysis.

With the increasing use of internet and wireless functionality in retail machines, Vianet was keen to explore the possible benefits this technology could bring to its vending customers. It was one of the first in its market to identify the possibilities and advantages of integrating internet capabilities into its vending machines to enable vending suppliers to remotely monitor their machines and analyse their stock sales whilst reducing management time and costs.

Reliability was a key priority for Vianet. A modem was needed which would recover quickly should the internet connection fail or a fault occur in the machines themselves. Vianet also needed to work with a partner that could supply the appropriate modems in large volumes and provide high-level consultancy and technical knowledge on how to effectively integrate the GSM modems into their own systems. Vianet’s legacy modem had raised numerous issues over its poor signal acquisition, level of power consumption and cost. Without Alpha Micro’s expertise in finding a replacement, it is unlikely that Vianet would have met its roll out target.

SOLUTION

After conducting primary background research on modem solution providers, John Gray, Vianet Operations Manager, approached Alpha Micro Components to gauge how effective the company would be in supporting his design team. Vianet needed a partner with a solid technical record and one which could help them introduce the product to the market as quickly as possible.

Alpha Micro specialises in the design and integration of telemetry products. As it excels in writing at code level, Alpha Micro could also offer Vianet a strong degree of technical knowledge to produce a highly functional and reliable GSM / GPRS solution within a very short timeframe. Using Sagem MO200 GSM/GPRS modems, Alpha Micro successfully helped Vianet to integrate the MO200 into its Vitelite telemetry unit. The module was selected over several competitive solutions as it was small in size, benefited from low power consumption, extended battery back up life and offered a significantly better radio signal performance in the many different locations where vending machines were located and crucially offered a backward compatible upgrade path. The low cost of the module in comparison to its competitors also met Vianet’s budgetary constraints and was a vital part of the success of the implementation.

Alpha Micro’s team of in-house design engineers worked with Vianet, to integrate the Sagem components into board-level designs and add real value to Vianet’s vending machine telemetry infrastructure. Dependable internet connectivity in turn helped Vianet’s customers to increase sales and reduce costs significantly

As a recent offering to customers, reports can be now be delivered securely over the Internet together with stock and fault alarms, which can then be sent to customers’ email addresses or mobile phones in real time. This allows local and regional operators to manage operations more efficiently and reduce cost by integrating data from remotely located vending equipment into the planning process.

John Gray, Vianet Operations Manager commented “We were very impressed with Alpha Micro’s technical expertise and level of engineering assistance. Working with them allowed us to go to market as quickly as possible with the most reliable and cost effective solution.”