Crane Merchandising Systems Launches MarketConnect New VendMAX Micromarket Integration Service

PRESS RELEASE

"Operators are experiencing pain points managing their businesses with disconnected processes for vending and micromarkets. Manual workarounds are labor intensive and create significant inefficiencies," said Silpa Pande, global product manager for vending management solutions. "MarketConnect seamlessly integrates micromarkets into the operator's business -- both from an operations and reporting standpoint."

MarketConnect provides a single source of data entry, cash and inventory accountability, integrated prekitting, and consolidated sales and financial reporting for vending, delivery and micromarkets.

"VendMAX customers are always focused on maximizing productivity. The goal of MarketConnect is to streamline processes -- eliminating dual data entry and integrating micromarkets into their standard processes," Pande said.

"By leveraging the existing VendMAX handheld and software, we were able to improve the overall inventory process which now takes far less time and is easier to manage," said Erich Markee, vice-president of operations for A&B Vending. "Our results have been everything we hoped they would be. Our onboarding time has been reduced, time to inventory has been cut in half, and our time to reconcile inventories was reduced. Best of all, our drivers are asking to have markets converted to the new process as soon as possible."

MarketConnect uses NAMA's Vending Data Interchange (VDI) standard to interface with the micromarkets. The standard is designed to ensure that any micromarket solution can be integrated with any vending management solution.

As a member of the NAMA VDI Council and co-author of the VDI standard along with 365 Retail Markets and Canteen, Streamware collaborated with micromarket providers and other vending management systems to develop this integration standard. As first adopters, 365 Retail Markets and Streamware refined the standard and successfully completed the field trials with three mutual customers.

"Open integration between micromarket and vending management systems benefits the operators and industry tremendously. I appreciate Streamware and 365 Retail Markets for becoming the early adopters and helping make this a reality," said Chris Lilly, chairman, NAMA VDI Council.

"We are excited to help our mutual customers grow their micro market business more profitably by creating and investing in the VDI standard," said Joe Hessling, 365 Retail Markets founder and CEO. "This standard allows us the flexibility to offer an end-to-end management solution for micromarkets, vending and OCS, regardless of the VMS provider. We would like to thank Streamware for their willingness to partner and devote countless hours to the success of this project."

MarketConnect is powered by Streamware Connect -- Crane's global device and data integration platform that connects data from practically any device or partner that can be leveraged by customers to drive profitability and growth.

ABOUT: Crane Merchandising Systems Crane Co. is a diversified manufacturer of engineered industrial products. Crane Co. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:CR). One of its segments, Crane Merchandising Systems, designs and manufactures a diverse, yet integrated portfolio of automatic merchandising equipment across multiple verticals, including hot and cold beverage, snack, and food. It also offers other vending solutions including cashless processing, payment devices, vending management software and wireless communication technology. Its legacy of brands (Automatic Products, Dixie Narco, GPL, National Vendors, Stentorfield and Streamware) enables Crane to provide customers a complete, cross-platform solution while maintaining innovation, quality and service.