Introduction
DAA were faced with a unique challenge by the ever changing legislation of tobacco products, the law at present prohibits the display of tobacco based goods in Ireland enforcing that products must be out of sight of the consumer until purchase. This threatened one of DAA's main revenue streams, duty free goods. This created a number of challenges that we were asked to address:
- Design and manufacture a semi-automated dispensing system for cartons of cigarettes and other related products
- To vend the cartons in such a way that they were not visible to the consumer, with the exception of the pack being purchased
- To develop, prototype and test within a highly compressed timeline, delivering 26 units for installation throughout DAA Airports across Ireland
- The solution should be simple to use, operate and reload
Render of base dispening unit.
Solution
With no standard mechanism existing for the vending of cartons of cigarettes sold in large capacities, a simple gravity de-stack system was devised, capable of being adjusted to accommodate the range of products offered. Products are dispensed, one at a time by a shuttle moving the product forward through a vend door.
A unique motor controller board was designed to constantly monitor the health and performance of the linear actuators to ensure optimal performance of the machine. Additionally remote operation was built into the system to allow future development for an improved user interface...
Advantages
- High capacity, high density of cigarette cartons
- All product hidden from customer view - even during vend cycle
- High-speed product delivery
