The Smart Vending Cabinet: Leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things for Business Process Improvement

(a) Situation faced: Changing customer behavior and expectancies posed a significant challenge for a market leader of chemical products in the Scandinavian region. Previously, customers could only purchase products at certified retailers or vending machines. However, these two main distribution channels no longer met the needs of both private and business customers and, thus, suffered from individual problems. Customers were demanding, for example, online features, high availability, consultation, and guidance within their distribution process. For this reason, the distribution process needed to be reengineered. (b) Action taken: A business process reengineering (BPR) project was carried out that aimed to develop a novel distribution process by merging existing processes and their advantages while extending them with additional features. Customer surveys were conducted to obtain an overview of customer requirements and problems within both current distribution processes. Based on the results, a set of design objectives for an ideal distribution process was formulated. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology was used to reengineer the distribution process radically. In this regard, existing research guided the goal-oriented leveraging of IIoT’s capabilities for business process improvement. (c) Results achieved: The reengineering project resulted in a novel distribution process combining the existing processes’ advantages and addressing new customer needs. By including IIoT technology, a radical rethinking was able to ensure all design objectives could be addressed. In the long term, the intention is that the Smart Vending Cabinet developed will replace distribution via retailers and regular vending machines because of its additional features and capabilities. The prototype phase has achieved enormous benefits and highly positive customer feedback. It, therefore, significantly lowers distribution costs while increasing customer satisfaction. (d) Lessons learned: The case demonstrated the value of IIoT technology for reengineering and improving business processes. By incorporating findings from current research, it addressed the formulated design objectives and met customer requirements.