IoT can Reduce Operating Costs for Convenience Stores
The Outlook Leadership Conference is a significant educational event for Convenience Store operators around the US. Tracy Markie, CEO and David Andow, president of Small Box Energy, were delighted to participate as speakers at this annual conference being held in Scottsdale this week.
It is no secret the convenience store industry is facing many different challenges with labor reclassification, minimum wage increases, and health insurance costs; among many other obstacles. Even faced with these challenges, the industry continues to grow and experienced record in-store sales in 2015, led by strong growth in foodservice products. Foodservice sales accounted for 33.7% of gross revenue.
At the same time, the industry saw a dramatic increase in maintenance costs – a 5% increase over 2014. IoT technology can help provide visibility and control to reduce these costs, as well as other operating costs for this industry.
IoT technology touches everyday things from wearables to sensors; it surrounds us. But often, many people don’t realize the huge impact IoT can have on their business. It enables remote diagnostics for HVAC, refrigeration, kitchen and lighting equipment. Tracy spoke to the audience about how IoT technology can be used to control, automate and schedule key equipment in the convenience stores. Almost 75% of the electricity consumed by convenience stores is from refrigeration and lighting equipment. This equipment can be monitored and automated to reduce electricity using IoT technology. Newer equipment has IoT technology built-in; but there are solutions for existing equipment, as well. With IoT, you can have insight into how much electricity each piece of equipment is using, and when using a simple web browser or your phone. Simply put, IoT solutions now give you the tools to control what we thought was ‘uncontrollable.’
David went on to speak about how IoT is like an x-ray for your business; it gives you a birds-eye view of one store, twenty stores or hundreds of stores. When an employee calls and says the space is too warm, the facility manager can look at their phone or on the internet and see how long the HVAC unit has been running, as well as the historical data associated with the unit(s). When the beer is warm, the manager can pull up the data to see if the compressor is running, failing, or if the door was propped open for an extended period of time. He used real data and charts, walking the audience through various remote diagnostic scenarios that saved the stores time and money, and most likely extended the life of the equipment.
Now that foodservice is a key initiative for this industry; the audience agreed all foods need to be temperature probed, recorded and available for health inspectors. With IoT solutions, the temperatures are automatically loaded to the database in the cloud and accessible long-term. Food probes and temperature monitoring with real-time alarms is another IoT feature and tool to help this industry become more efficient.
Technology cost is coming down, yet many executives still believe the cost for equipment diagnostics or food safety using IoT far outweighs the benefits, but Tracy went on to explain that implementing a system like Small Box Energy’s chameleon also enables energy conservation. Automation and control reduce total consumption and, in some cases, pays for the system. Additionally, IoT is so mainstream, the costs are lower and many companies, like Small Box Energy, have moved to a managed service agreement with a monthly subscription and no up-front capital costs for equipment.
At the end of the presentation, a customer in the audience spoke up referencing the hot summer they had just seen in the southern part of the US. He analyzed and compared their office kWh consumption, which does not have an energy management system, and their stores, which are using Small Box Energy’s chameleon. Their electricity usage at the office went up approximately 13% over last year; whereas their stores remained almost flat.
As this industry continues to grow, we see many benefits to implementing an IoT-based solution to save energy, reduce maintenance costs and implement food safety procedures. For more information contact Small Box Energy by emailing salesteam@smallboxenergy.com.
