An integrated management system for vending systems

Vending machines have become a frequently used shopping tool in daily life in many countries, as they minimize the costs such as personnel, energy and rent required for a classical point of sale, provide 24/7 service and are easily accessible. Increasing product, personnel and energy costs force vending machine managers and reduce the profitability of enterprises. For this reason, vending machine managers have sought new management strategies to reduce costs. The aim of this study is to develop a management system that will assist system administrators in inventory management and distribution planning in order to reduce operational costs and lost sales, increase employee and operation efficiency, customer service level and product availability for vending machine system administrators. For this purpose, within the scope of the thesis, aintegrated management strategy has been proposed by classifying the products in the warehouse that distributes products to the machines for the management of the vending machine network. A vehicle routing algorithm has been developed that plans the daily machine visit of the distribution operator. Key words: Inventory management, operational management, vehicle routing, vending systems