Article

The logistics of kiosk deployment

The perfect kiosk goes nowhere unless it's transported and installed correctly.

June 12, 2006

Imagine a nearly flawless kiosk deployment: It connects perfectly to your existing network; the enclosures and software are attractive, branded and easy to use. The sales and savings the pilot generated earned widespread deployment a rubber stamp from upstairs and there are 1,000 shiny units in Wisconsin waiting to go into your every North American store.

Now the trick becomes getting them there - but moving the sensitive electronics and connecting to databases and financial networks gets complicated.

We asked two experts, Bailiwick marketing manager Tom Heerman and TECHnical TRANSportation Inc. president Len Batcha, to explain the do's and don'ts of kiosk installations.

Plan, plan, plan

Heerman said the total cost of transporting and installing kiosks depends on a number of unique variables, but the deployer can generally plan to spend about 10 percent of the project budget placing the kiosks. He said the main price considerations are weight or dimensional weight, size of shipment, method of shipment (pallets, boxes, full loads or partial), distance to the sites, availability of shipping hubs or drop off points and current fuel surcharges. The trick, Heerman said, isn't in physically installing the kiosks - which are generally relatively simple computing devices - but managing the aggressive timeframes and long distance deliveries that large deployments generally entail.

"We customize every solution using a PMI-based methodology that covers a project through initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure," Heerman said. "Most importantly, we ask a whole lot of questions up front. I think sometimes we almost annoy prospective clients with the thorough pre-project reviewing we do."

Navigate the obstacles

Typical obstacles include hooking up power and networking cables. Adding a power outlet or a Cat5 cable doesn't sound like a big deal, but doing it for 1,000 kiosks can multiply the price and time of installation. A little management foresight can curtail some of those costs. There can also be technical obstacles, like compatibility issues between the kiosk and the pre-existing database. Then there are logistic dilemmas, like the ones TECH TRANS found when installing a large simulator at an arcade in The Peabody Mall in Memphis, Tenn., which the local zoning board wouldn't allowed to be done during the day time - so they delivered it at 1 a.m. Sunday morning, before the mall opened at 8 a.m.

"This particular arcade ordered a NASCAR simulator and the NASCAR simulator was designed to sit outside of their building façade," Batcha said. "You can imagine the simulator was probably 1,800 plus pounds. About 16 feet long by 10 feet wide by eight feet high. People go in there and do their NASCAR simulation. The client looked for a delivery company to assist them with the installation and the delivery of this simulator. They contacted us. We took a look at it, studied the facilities, entrance points, and looked at what kind of equipment we'd need to make the delivery. We found out we actually had to use a crane."

Be very careful

Many kiosks contain a lot of expensive, fragile equipment. Heerman said Bailiwick's project managers choose the safest, lowest-cost carrier that can handle each job. TECH TRANS caters to the high-end of that spectrum, offering "white glove" service and using air rides for all their road deliveries (which have, over the years, included everything from pianos to medical gadgetry).

"A typical transportation company will not do," Batcha said. "These things need some special attention."

Install it correctly

Putting the kiosk in the right place, hooked up the right way in multiple locations takes specialized knowledge. Heerman said Bailiwick has a variety of labor models it uses to plan installations, based on its experience. Batcha said when his company is tapped to install a kiosk, they use multimedia training tools to make sure the installers do it correctly.

"On this one ATM installation with an OEM, the gentleman had some delivery requirements," Batcha said. "The instructions were fairly detailed in nature. We decided to get a hold of an actual ATM machine and do a mock-up installation. We video taped the mock-up event and made a DVD video for our agents who would be performing these types of installs. We posted those instructions on our Web page, so before they made an attempt at the install they'd be fully trained on the installation. In this particular instance, what we've done is we've established the detailed training and then we make the delivery contact with the end-site user."