Smart Card Based Vending Machine Controller

Our smart card based Vending system helps in controlled dispensing of products among closed user groups such as employees of a company, patients and staff of a hospital etc..   The contactless smart cards can be issued among closed user groups that allow them to use the vending machines for their needs.  Other users can be either charged or prevented from using the machines as per requirement.   The system is fully developed in-house for some specific large customers in India.   Any changes can be accommodated based on numbers

Product description
Why Smart Card in Vending?

• Smart card is used in vending machines to regulate the usage of vending machines and also to account for and (in certain cases) to collect the cost of the beverage from the users.
• Regulation is accomplished as only people with the card can use the machine. Any one else can not take anything except hot-water from the machine.

Components of Smart card based vending

• The Smart card : This is a visiting card sized plastic card with in-built electronics that can be used to read and write information. One card is issued to each user.
• The Vending machine Reader : This reader is interconnected with the vending machine controller and reads any card that is shown by the user. This signals to the vending machine controller to allow vending when a valid card is read. Each vending machine will have one reader.
• The Hand Held Terminal (HHT) : This equipment is used to transfer drink data from the vending machines to the central computer and also the real time information and blacklisted card updates from the central computer to the vending machines. In most installations one HHT will be sufficient for one company. Since all billing depends on this, a spare unit is recommended for large installations.
• Card Formatter : This equipment is linked to the central computer and is used for one-time formatting of postpaid and prepaid cards and also for recharging of prepaid cards. Depending on the frequency of recharging that may be required, one or two formatters will be sufficient for one company.

Postpaid and Prepaid
Cost of the beverage can be collected in one of the two ways :

• Accumulate the number of drinks a person consumes thru his card and at the end of a period (say at the time of salary) the corresponding amount can be collected. This method is called Postpaid.
• Money can be collected in advance and the value can be stored in the card. As and when the drink is taken, a corresponding value can be deducted from the card. This method is called Prepaid.

Postpaid : This is suitable for employees of a company. Once a card is formatted as a postpaid card, then any number of drinks will be allowed to be taken using the card as long as it is not blacklisted.

Prepaid : Once a card is formatted as prepaid, the VM Reader allows dispensing only on successful deduction. If balance is insufficient for deducting, then the VM Reader will not allow dispensing. The card may be used successfully after recharging.

Vending Machine Reader

• This will examine each card that is shown. If a drink selection was made before showing the card, then the VMR will check the card and allow or disallow vending based on the card information. If a card is shown without any drink selection, then it will display the following according to type of the card.
• Name of the card holder (Postpaid card) or Value remaining in the card (Prepaid Card)
• Apart from dispensing, the VMR also writes one record for each drink dispensed in its own in-built memory. The record contains data like Employee code, type of drink dispensed, date and time of dispensing.
• Periodically (say once a day / once a week etc..) an operator has to use the HHT to collect the data from the vending machines and put them in the central computer.
• Once all data of a particular period has been collected in the central computer, then the software should process the data and generate all necessary reports.
• We can also provide Touch screen based user interface

The Simpler Option :

• If it is possible to configure that only Prepaid system is used, then the overal system will become very simple and economical. The following components will NOT be needed
• There will be no HHT since there is no need for any data collection
• Also you will not need any extra software to process the postpaid data