Qmuzik, in association with a team of companies, has developed a cashless and wireless vending solution that puts paid to the challenges of using cash in a campus environment.
A consortium of companies which included North-West University (Potchefstroom), iGrade and Qmuzik set out to enable employees and/or students to trade on their localised premises which meant utilising all the facilities at their disposal in an efficient and manageable fashion.
The outcome is the Varsite Vending solution, which is essentially a software and hardware solution utilising the fundamentals of a real-time financial system.
All the challenges such as peak-hour trading and stock moving between buildings/facilities was integrated with Web and mobile interfaces in order to streamline the functionality and enhance the usability of the solution.
The pilot site, North-West University`s Potch campus, hosts about 12 000 students. The modules included in the pilot included:
* Full financial system with real-time ability
* Inventory controls
* Manufacturing and MRP that will control food preparation
* Remote and standard point of sale (POS) systems allowing for events such as RAG and concerts
* Waiter applications using the best in handheld computing
The above functionality was able to introduce the well established principles of production management into the campus`s restaurant which, importantly, facilitated the ability to improve on waste management, kanbans and flowrack systems that are currently deployed in the international fast-food chains.
In relation to point of sale (POS) environments, the system was able to accommodate both physical and remote POS, which meant that by utilising GSM, RF and Bluetooth enabled devices such as the PSION Netbook PRO, that waiters/servers in restaurants were able to take orders without going back into the kitchen.
Similarly, waiters were alerted when food/bar orders were ready through these devices.
From the perspective of the user, any employee or student was able to couple their payroll/student accounts to their cellphone which facilitates the ability to trade 24 hours a day without having to carry cash. Photocopying, book purchases, etc, could all be purchased virtually and uploaded seamlessly to the respective employee or student`s account. The system could also manage a debit environment so that "overspending" could be limited. Ease of use tends to boost revenue which makes the ROI of the solution that much more viable.
The solution also provides for profiling, which means a parent, for example, could limit the amount or the type of purchases that a student makes.
Overall, the solution developed is sophisticated and complete handling all the complicated campus trading challenges and scenarios and the same time forces it to be cashless.
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