The connection between coffee and IoT

What does IoT have to do with coffee? You’d be surprised: The caffeinated beverage shares some surprising characteristics with IoT and what it can bring to the table.

So, sit back, relax, enjoy a cup of joe and read on.

We’re sure you’ve visited a doctor’s or dentist’s office. The one thing offering solace in these places – especially early in the morning – is coffee.

It may be a pod coffee maker or an old-school filter machine. What you most likely don’t notice is that the office may not have had the time to monitor maintenance of that pod coffee maker. Maybe the workers were too busy  providing the quality service only they can provide to their patients.

So, what happens when:

• The delivery driver’s van breaks down and they run out of coffee pods?
• Or they run out of paper cups because the order went out on the wrong form?
• Or they run out of those coffee stirrers and sugar because too many people used two of each?

Pandemonium. You will have no coffee. No coffee means dissatisfaction, especially when there are delays and you sit, tired in the waiting room for hours on end. That’s not fun.

Even worse, what if other appliances and devices at the doctor’s, like lights and thermostats, go out? What if you are really ill, needing to go to the hospital, and the ambulance dispatchers, dealing with the stress of bad capacity management, cannot get a crew to you?

A lack of coffee is only the beginning. Wouldn’t it be great if every organization that you depend on never let you down?

They could with the Internet of Things.

Enter the IoT

Think of that coffee pod maker. Imagine if the coffee machine could somehow connect to the Internet and link to the company responsible for actually manufacturing it.

Then the vendor would know what is needed and when:

• It could send alerts to the doctor’s office when the machine’s being used X number of times and a service is needed
• It could automatically reorder stirrers, pods, filters, etc. when they are running low, ensuring they don’t run out.

And the best part is it all works seamlessly without anyone constantly checking the machine.

 This is the power of the Internet of Things. It’s a win-win for both parties, the doctor’s office and the coffee pod provider. For the office staff, instead of having to restock from the back room, third-party vendor staff comes in and restocks at exactly the right time.

 For the vendor, instead of a one-off sale to a doctor’s office, it can provide “everything-as-a-service” – generating more regular and reliable revenue.

 Literally. Offering a product like a coffee pod maker capable of connecting to the Internet means you have a smart appliance capable of transmitting data to anywhere – thanks to the cloud. And the benefits are instantly realized. Happy patients. Happier nurses and doctors.

Smart construction sites?

If IoT can benefit coffee, just think about what it can do for other things. Take a construction site, for example. Traditional dispatching at the site is a manual process: the dispatcher calls the truck driver and asks: “Where are you?” Then manually enters it into a logbook. If he is not at his station when a truck comes in, the site manager has literally no idea that certain supplies were delivered. There could be construction delays, which cause financial penalties.

 With IoT-enabled digital operational control, the trucks are equipped with a sensor tracker; and the site has geofences that can determine arrivals and departures. This is managed by smart rules and entered into a digital logbook – so every load is tracked, stored with alerts sent to the site manager. No delays!

 Coffee and construction are just for starters.

Learn more about the IoT and what it can do for you in our Newbies Guide to IoT – click below for a free copy.