Vending

Technology investment helps Texas operator recover from COVID

An investment in telemetry has paid off for this vending operator and hastened his company's recovery from COVID.

Randy Abdallah has found pre-kitting in the warehouse a key to success for Astro Vending in Laredo, Texas.

March 1, 2023 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

For a small vending operation like Astro Vending in Laredo, Texas, vending technology has proven a necessity not just to be successful, but to survive.

Like many services businesses, the two-route operation witnessed a near 80% fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Most of the company's 12 employees quit or retired.

Astro Vending, a Canteen franchisee, has since managed to recover 60% of the business to date, thanks in large measure to the investments in vending management software and telemetry several years ago.

"I was running those routes by myself for two years," Randy Abdallah, manager of the family owned business, told Vending Times in a phone interview.

Most of the company's customer locations (80%) consisted of truck stops, supplemented with office buildings, two colleges and two hospitals.

During COVID, the truck terminals remained active but most of the drivers stayed in their trucks instead of coming into the lounges.

"They (the truck terminals) weren't letting more than 10 to 15 people in there," Abdallah said. "They (the drivers) would come in and take a shower and leave. They wouldn't come in to watch TV and just kind of hang out."

And while the colleges Abdallah services never closed, many of the students switched to online learning rather than returning to campuses.

"I picked up a lot of machines because places either closed down or they didn't want people touching the machines," he said. "This year, we're starting to get some of that equipment back out."

A wise use of downtime

When COVID idled business activity, Abdallah wisely used the downtime to add more telemetry devices to his machines. Now nearly all of his machines are connected to the Crane Simplifi cloud-based connectivity network.

"Throughout COVID I was installing and upgrading machines," he said. "It takes a bit of work. You've got to put new control boards and update all the validators and changers to MDB (multi-drop bus). Put the card readers on it and make sure everything is programmed and communicating properly."

A fortuitous investment

Operating out of a 4,000-quare-foot warehouse, Abdallah began installing telemetry in his machines beginning in 2018 to monitor sales more accurately and pre-kit his deliveries.

Under the prior vending management system, the drivers manually input meter readings from the machines into their handheld computers. The meter readings enabled the company to reconcile cash received to sales, but it did not accurately forecast inventory requirements.

"It didn't have any direct communication (with the machine), it was all algorithm-based," Abdallah said. "We were either short some items or over a lot."

The telemetry enabled dynamic scheduling, by which deliveries are scheduled based on when the machines need service as opposed to having static schedules.

"With the dynamic scheduling, it's easier to watch things and schedule, so you're not running around and checking on as much," he said. "The machines will contact you if it's broken or there's a coin jam or there's a telemetry issue. I'll get a text or an email.

"The communication from the machine to the network helps out a lot and it reduces your windshield time," he continued. "The machines report into the network twice a day. They'll report sales and quantities needed and quantities sold by selection."

The drivers now use their cell phones to download the DEX data from the machine. The application then sends the data to the network.

"We can watch sales and depletion and error codes; stuff like that all come in through the network," Abdallah said. "They (the delivery drivers) can make all the changes, whatever they add, whatever they change, whatever they remove or spoil, refund … they can plug all that in the application, then it gets saved and pushed up to the network."

The telemetry also allowed him to install credit card readers on all machines, which improved sales.

Technology supports pre-kitting

All deliveries are pre-kitted in the warehouse so that drivers only have to pick up the baskets, deliver them to the locations and place the products in the machines. The pre-kitting saves the driver from having to decide what products to put in the machine.

"You take the seven (pre-kitted) baskets in and it will fill an empty machine completely," he said.

This past November, Abdallah hired two delivery drivers, which has helped the business recover from the pandemic setback. There are now two delivery drivers and two warehouse employees.

Challenges remain

Challenges remain despite the progress.

Abdallah recently replaced his one micro market in a call center with vending machines because of product shrinkage. The location management did not want to address the theft from the micro market, an issue many convenience services operators have cited as of late.

"I still have that (account)," he said. "I just put (vending) machines in there and shut the micro market down. They (the location management) didn't want to be responsible for the theft."

"It gives them the same variety the micro market had, just not in the same quantity," he said for the six vending machines which offer offering snacks, soda, fresh food and frozen food.

Overall, Abdallah remains hopeful that his recovery will continue.

"They (the drivers) are hitting 25 machines a day, getting it done," he said, with a note of optimism.

Image provided by Astro Vending and Adobe Stock.