vending machine

Examples of vending machine in the following topics:

• Vending Machines

  • A vending machine can dispense a wide variety of merchandise when the consumer inserts money into it.
  • The most common form of vending machine, the snack machine, often uses a metal coil which rotates to release an ordered product.
  • The main example of a vending machine giving access to all merchandise after paying for one item is a newspaper vending machine (also called vending box) found mainly in the U.S. and Canada.
  • A wide variety of goods can be dispensed by vending machines, and in some places, even burgers and steaks!
  • This is a Best Buy Express vending machine at an airport terminal, stocked with electronics.

• Making the most of office furnishings, computers and equipment

  • An Energy Star rated medium-sized copying machine, for example, can cut $50 or more off annual energy bills.
  • Buy remanufactured, energy-efficient computers, copiers, fax machines, etc. instead of new models whenever possible.
  • Especially ensure that equipment is unplugged during weekends (vending machines are a prime target).

• Analyzing every stage of production

  • The company now only orders snacks from vending machine suppliers that take back their packaging – a move that has greatly reduced the amount of rubbish in office bins.

• Nonstore Retailers

  • Distance selling includes mail order, catalogue sales, telephone solicitations, and automated vending.
  • You can go to CustomMade.com to purchase a good made specifically for you by one of those same machines.
  • Vending machines are another type of non-store retailing.

• Classifying Consumer Products

  • Vending machines typically dispense convenience goods, as do automatic teller machines.

• Production lines come in all shapes and sizes

  • As Peter Zelinski, editor of Modern Machine Shop Magazine explains, usually there are two ways to produce a machine part or product.
  • Big, multi-function machines can cost much more when compared to a series of smaller machines that perform the same function.
  • Moreover, an entire production operation can grind to a halt when a large, multi-functional machine tool is shut down for repairs (in addition, maintenance costs for large machines are also higher than those of smaller machines).
  • The cost of the smaller machine?
  • (Zelinski, Peter, ‘Why Boeing is Big on Right-Size Machine Tools')

• Putting together a clean production line

  • Is this machine or item really necessary?
  • Is the full life-cycle cost of the machine being considered rather than its purchase price?
  • Inefficient, energy-hungry machines can consume their initial purchasing cost in energy per week.
  • The second includes how much the machine costs to operate in the long-term.
  • Deficient (or zero) measurement makes it difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much a machine costs.

• Productivity Gains from Hardware

  • The spinning mule allowed a large number of threads to be spun by a single machine using water power.
  • Before machine tools, it was prohibitively expensive to make precision parts, an essential requirement for many machines and interchangeable parts.
  • Perhaps the best early example of a productivity increase by machine tools and special purpose machines is the Portsmouth Block Mills.
  • With these machines, 10 men could produce as many blocks as 110 skilled craftsmen.
  • Historically important machine tools are the screw-cutting lathe, milling machine, and metal planer (metalworking), which all came into use between 1800 and 1840.

• Demand-pull production system and quick setups to reduce lot sizes

  • The traditional approach to manufacturing management promotes a strong focus on machine and labor utilization.The view was that if managers make sure that workers and machines are always busy, then surely the factory will be productive and efficient.This approach is called the "push" system of manufacturing, where raw material and work-in-process is continuously pushed through the factory in the pursuit of high utilization.The problem with this approach is that it usually produces high levels of inventories, long lead times, overtime costs, high levels of potential rework, and workers who are competing with one another rather than working cooperatively.
  • To keep unit production costs under control, 3M studied the setups on its coating machines.
  • Since the cost of chemical waste disposal was a major part of the cost of changing over a coating machine to make another product, 3M shortened the length of hoses that needed purging and redesigned the shape of the adhesive solution holding pan on the coating machine to be shallower. 3M also used quick-connect devices, disposable filters, and work teams to speed up setups.
  • The result was that 3M could maintain low unit costs on its coating machines while producing small lots of hundreds of products to meet market demand quickly.

• Efficient wastewater treatment

  • Ecological engineering (also known as ecological sanitation or living machines) is an emerging industry that treats raw sewage, including effluent, heavy metals and other chemicals, economically and safely by pumping them through a series of open tanks filled with organic plant and animal life.
  • Typically, it takes one to three days for sewage to pass through all the required tanks in a living machine system.
  • Some companies even harvest and sell the methane gas their living systems produce, as well as the flowers, fish, tomatoes and lettuce that grow within them – which means that ‘living machine' systems can be money-spinners.
  • Like many efficient processes, the cost of a living machine not only pays for itself, it is also a huge source of pride and admiration for employees.
  • Interstate 91, the Sonora Mountain Brewery in California, the Body Shop factory in Ontario, Canada, and the National Audubon Society in Florida have all boasted at one time or another about the beauty and efficiency of their wastewater treatment ‘living machines'.