Case study: Refreshment Solutions
Refreshment Solutions is the largest vending and micro market company in New Orleans and Baton Rouge with
over 80 employees. They pride themselves on efficiency, green initiatives, and high-technology vending machines,
making them innovators in their industry. Refreshment Solutions promotes a healthy lifestyle when stocking their
machines, providing businesses with nutritious items to choose from. With technology like a vending app, which
allows users to request a refund or a new product, and cashless machines, giving users the ability to pay via
mobile device, including Apple Pay and Google Wallet, there are major assets to protect. With multiple locks and
padlocks securing their machines, building, warehouse, and case rooms, Refreshment Solutions needed tight
security and control of these assets.

Challenge: Key Control and Audit Trails
With over 6,000 machines to service and 21 daily vending routes, Refreshment Solutions needed a solution
that provided accountability and key management. Refreshment Solutions was handing out set keys to each
driver. Since each route had a designated set of keys, if the driver didn’t have the right key on the route on any
given day, an employee would then have to drive a key out to the driver or the machine would be left unserviced.
That machine would then need to be added to the schedule for the following day, piling up more work.

Solution: CyberLock
Refreshment solutions faced frustration with a lack of accountability from employees who serviced their machines. With no control over when machines were serviced and no way of knowing whether employees serviced machines, Refreshment Solutions needed to implement a new system. After discovering CyberLock at NAMA, the National Automatic Merchandising Association Tradeshow, they had found their solution. “CyberLock gave us control through audit trails” says Jennifer Toomey, General Manager. The audit trails, recorded in both the smart key and lock, made it possible for Refreshment Solutions to have control over who is in what machine and at what time. With 21 vending routes daily, and each driver servicing 29 machines plus micro markets, this was the largest benefit.

Cyberlock not only saves time and money for Refreshment Solutions, it also provides peace of mind. Employees are held accountable due to the CyberLock system’s ability to track who accessed what machine and when. CyberLock also allows employees to carry one key with special access permissions that allow them to only open the locks on their route, during the times that they are scheduled to service those machines.