A kiosk does not remove work, it moves it
A self-checkout till, an ordering kiosk at a fast food chain and a check-in kiosk in a waiting room are the same device with different software on it: a screen, a scanner, a printer, a payment terminal and a stand holding it upright. They are bought to save staff and only do so once somebody stands beside them for the first few weeks. This page says what such a setup consists of, where it stalls and where our boundary sits.
Four places, one device
The software differs, the hardware underneath is largely the same, and that makes the choice simpler than it looks.
- The self-checkout tillIn the supermarket and the specialist shop. Screen, scanner, scale, receipt printer and a payment terminal, in a stand that has to survive a shop floor. This is the heaviest variant, because there is weighing and paying involved and because supervision comes with it.
- The ordering kioskIn fast food and at the bakery. A large touchscreen, a receipt printer and a payment terminal; there is no scanning. The order then has to appear in the kitchen, and that is a link to the till software and not something the kiosk does itself.
- The check-in kioskIn a clinic, a garage or a reception hall. Checking in with a card or a code, a ticket or directions coming out. Here the printer is the part that breaks and the screen is the part that gets dirty.
- The machineParking, weighing scales, ticket sales. An open-frame screen and a built-in printer inside somebody else’s housing. That is the side where we usually supply separate parts rather than a complete kiosk.
Four things that only show up on the shop floor
None of them appears in a quote and all four decide whether the kiosk is still in use after a month.
Somebody has to stand beside it
For the first few weeks people get stuck on the first step and walk away. A kiosk only saves work once somebody helps out at the start, and that person rarely appears in the sum the kiosk was bought on.
The printer is the part that breaks
Everything on a kiosk is still except the mechanism feeding paper. That is the part that jams, and a kiosk with an empty or jammed printer is a kiosk nobody uses any more. Budget for refilling paper as a standing task and not as an incident.
The floor and the power
A kiosk stands where nothing stands now, and power and network have to reach it. In an existing shop that is floor work with a lead time. Order the kiosk before this is worked out and you have a kiosk in a box.
Supervision of the setup
Twenty kiosks doing nothing show no error message. They belong in the monitoring, like the screens and the tills, so a kiosk that is off becomes an alert instead of an empty queue.
The kiosk, the parts and the rollout, and two boundaries
This is the same catalogue and the same installation job as the staffed till already in place.
- The parts and the standTouchscreens and open-frame models from Elo, receipt and kiosk printers from Custom, Bixolon, Citizen and Star Micronics, cash drawers from APG, scanners from Zebra, Honeywell, Datalogic and Newland, and the stands and brackets from Ergonomic Solutions that hold the whole thing upright.
- Placing and connectingMeasuring up, placing, connecting and checking per site that it works. Across several branches that is a rollout with a schedule. In the Netherlands and Belgium our own people do that on site.
- Boundary one: the payment terminalThe payment terminal comes from your payment provider, and rightly so: that device is certified and tied to your contract. We are not a payment provider and we do not process payments. We supply the holder, mount the terminal, run the cable and make sure the path out stays up.
- Boundary two: the software and loss preventionThe till or ordering software on the kiosk belongs to a third party, as does the platform behind it. And the detection gates and camera supervision watching a self-checkout are a product line of their own from a specialist security supplier. We supply the equipment and the network and work alongside those parties.
What goes with this
A kiosk stands in the same shop as the staffed till and on the same network.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most, answered briefly.
Do you also supply the payment terminal?
No, and it should not come from us. The payment terminal comes from your payment provider: that device is certified and tied to your contract. We are not a payment provider and we do not process payments. We supply the holder, mount the terminal, run the cable and make sure the connection out stays up.
Does a self-checkout till save staff?
Not straight away. For the first few weeks people get stuck on the first step and somebody is needed to help out. That person rarely appears in the sum the kiosk was bought on. After that it does save, provided the kiosks are kept up.
What breaks most often in practice?
The receipt printer. Everything on a kiosk is still except the mechanism feeding paper, and a kiosk with an empty or jammed printer stops being used. Refilling paper is a standing task and not an incident, and the kiosks belong in the monitoring so you can see when one is off.
First the floor, then the kiosk
Say how many sites are involved, which till software is running and who your payment provider is. The setup follows from that, including the floor work that comes with it.
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