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PREKITTING while assigning each route 26 to 30 machines. "We service 1,200 vending machines with eight trucks," he said. Dube is considering adding remote machine monitoring next, which he feels would allow the company to cut an additional truck or extend without adding another route. With his current system, he is making an average of $180 to $220 per visit. "Your effciencies and proftability go up signifcantly," Dube added. While Dube started prekitting at 13 routes, operators have found success starting much earlier. Six routes is common and sometimes fewer if they aren't adding warehouse costs. Since every vending operation is different, there is a little math involved in deciding when the time is right. "Regardless of whether an operator is smaller or larger, there has to be cost versus ROI, a break-even point, that can be clearly seen" said Warren Philips, president of Validata Computer & Research Corp. Operators can reduce time and costs by prekitting immediately with relatively low total cost of ownership on the front-end using the proper vending machine planogrammed handhelds and by doing it off the truck, on-site, with the same personnel who are currently being used to service/replenish the machines. "You can still achieve one-trip-in without initially making signifcant new equipment, personnel and supervision costs in the warehouse…this is walking," said Philips using a walk, then run analogy for prekitting. Once picking operations have moved to the warehouse, the operator can start "running." According to Don Blotner, a former operator now part of the customer success management team for Cantaloupe, tracking and predicting what products will be needed for a machine can create substantial time savings. "It's 3 to 5 minutes a driver spends in front of a machine that could be better spent," 20 Automatic Merchandiser Handhelds or remote machine monitoring Prekitting can be done in two ways. One is with handhelds where the driver downloads the DEX data while servicing the location. The other is that it can be done with remote machine monitoring, where telemetry or wireless communication is used to send the DEX data from the machine to the vending management system (VMS). "70 to 80 percent of vending machines show a consistent pattern and are therefore very predictable," said Bill Lockett, sales director of VendSys. These machines can use handhelds. "That leaves 30 percent that can use wireless machines to complete the one trip per location circle and nearly double Blotner said. However, he also warns operators about having economies of scale. "You don't want to just replace street labor with back-of-house labor," he added. He's seen prekitting done from the truck early on, in order to avoid this overhead cost. A driver has a pick ticket for the location and loads up a tote before going in. It's still one trip and saves time. In fact, Blotner says prekitting typically can help consolidate one route for every four. This servicing model does come with a word of warning, however. It requires accurate data. "Having poor or inaccurate data ripples through the whole process," said Blotner. "An inaccurate amount of product means having to deal with product a second time when it comes back to the warehouse or having to go back to a machine sooner because of a short fll." Accurate data requires periodically inventorying machines to get feld numbers in order. Blotner recommends this be done every 3 to 5 visits. Mark Kronenberg, president of CompuVend Systems, agrees. "Driv- VendingMarketWatch.com August 2013 every route's capacity," he added. Juan Jorquera, president of Vagabond Vending, feels there's fewer hurdles for operators to go completely wireless now than ever before. "Technology is readily available and inexpensive compared to 10 years ago, which is when most systems were built on the handheld model," he explained. The data from the machines syncs wirelessly to phones and tablets. Additionally, Jorquera suggests that a credit card reader effectively behaves like a telemetry device, therefore is one more option for operators investigating remote machine monitoring. ers do need to periodically take an inventory," he said. "Some people believe computers know everything." He uses an example: if the spiral holds 10 products and the warehouse person only packs eight in the tote/ the machine dispenses two products at the same time, the driver will be unable to completely refll the row. If the driver does not record that inventory is missing two units, the pick lists will continue to be short. Another example might be if the driver has to remove out of date products. "It's important to be accurate," said Kronenberg. "Prekitting relies on item level tracking." What's needed for prekitting First and foremost, prekitting requires getting all machines to DEX. "We had two people doing this full time, said Jon Snyder, vice president of Snyder Food Services, Inc. in Kendallville, Ind., about when Snyder Food Services converted its 20 route operation in 2010. "Hands down it was the largest expense. We didn't realize how much it was going