NEWS | Industry Updates Helping to disrupt the global coffee market
Costa Coffee’s introduction of Costa Express and self-service vending machines has enabled the brand to extend its reach and increase its market share. Costa’s goal with the introduction was to serve the same quality coffee available in its store via high- end coffee machines, in locations including gas stations, shopping centres or airports. The concept of ‘on-the-go’ coffee has since increased the company’s brand profile and reach dramatically. Today, Costa Express operates in 17 international markets and has 13,500 machines stationed worldwide. As a premium brand, it’s critical that the machines match the quality, service, and experience delivered through barista- made coffee in-store. A commanding reputation and a strong track record in innovation combined with ambitious future plans meant that Costa Express needed to deploy an end-to-end IoT service, bringing together best-of-breed services across a range of experienced suppliers. Eseye has supported the company in deploying IoT- enabled vending machines on a global scale.
The smart vending connectivity challenge The company’s strategy to deliver barista- quality coffee requires the same high- quality ingredients as stores, which means that machine upkeep and uptime are critical to providing quality drinks every time. So, finding a real-time, robust, and reliable connectivity solution was vital to Costa Express, which monitors its machines using an IoT solution based on the CentreSight platform. This level of monitoring is essential to ensure a premium experience, faultless payment capture, swift maintenance, and no delays in restocking fresh ingredients.
8 |
vendinginternational-online.com Plans for international expansion and
the need to transfer data in real-time led Costa Express to explore a variety of IoT solutions. Following conversations and trials with various cellular and modem providers, the company contacted Eseye - a global provider of IoT-managed services – to discuss their connectivity solutions. Costa Express initially investigated several connectivity solutions, including on-site Ethernet or over- the-air (OTA) cellular connection. However, Ethernet meant relying on the site
owner – often a convenience store or forecourt operator – and increased connectivity risk. For example, a modem failing would result in a failed connection and could lead to lost business, frustrated customers, and trigger a costly engineer site visit.
Multi-RAT connectivity to the rescue Eseye successfully demonstrated its cellular and hardware capability to Costa Express by trialling its AnyNet+ SIM and Hera 604 edge-gateway router. The trial succeeded, allowing Costa Express to simplify its supply chain across IoT design, build, and ongoing management stages. The Hera 604 and AnyNet+ SIM work hand-in-hand. The Hera router can handle multiple radio-access types (RAT), including 3G, 4G/LTE, and Wi-Fi connections. Eseye’s AnyNet+ SIM connects to any available mobile network, enabling cellular data access anywhere and communication to the back-end systems as soon as one of the machines is powered on. With access to over 700 mobile networks in 190 countries, Eseye’s connectivity solution offers network resilience and device uptime with near 100% connectivity. In addition, the CentreSight platform works on a store-and- forward basis for telemetry so that machines can continue serving if the connection is lost.
Connecting the edge Compact and built of rugged aluminum, the Hera is built to last, and its direct mounting makes installation easy, especially with this smart vending use case. Eseye’s IoT device design team worked closely with Costa Express to build out-of-the-box configuration and connectivity that can be monitored, accessed, and reconfigured over the air without on-site physical intervention. The Hera router combines multiple sensors, units, and data points. For the Costa Express machine, the services on the embedded device aggregates over 90 sensors including health monitoring, local time synchronisation and data route information. This reliable real-time data exchange reduces the total cost of ownership and allows Costa Express to be more proactive. The coffee vending machines report
problems directly to Costa Express’ platform, making diagnosis and problem- solving quick and easy. The basis for this is an elaborate alarming system: detected error messages from the machines are pre-processed and then transferred to the IoT platform according to priority. In a malfunction, such as a disrupted water flow or when coffee beans and milk run out, the IoT solution immediately triggers the appropriate alerts. These alerts are addressed directly to the right contact person, which reduces the time needed to solve the problem. Detailed reports on downtimes and troubleshooting times also enable Costa Express to communicate optimisation suggestions to operators and service partners, thus making the machines more profitable in the long term.
A smart vending pioneer Iced coffee has captured a significant portion of the worldwide coffee market, and today, one in five coffee purchases are iced, whether milk coolers or fruit cordials. In response, Costa Express is diversifying its vending remit by rolling out an integrated hot and iced drinks self-serve machine, all centrally managed through its IoT platform. Under the ownership of Coca-Cola, Costa Express will look to add to its international market stronghold and continue to develop new machine propositions with IoT at its heart.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24
