Star Tech Journal

July 1997
bus. Therefore if the menu LED's
turn off, the external RS-485 is
working and the problem must
be in the keyboard or keyboard
cable.
Further questions should be di-
rected to Rock-Ola's Rosemont,
IL. service department.
The following information may
be considered "dry" or even bor-
ing, but for those who are inter-
ested in maintaining maximum
income from their route, it's
worth trudging through.
How much does a jammed biU
acceptor and not knowing about
it right away really cost?
I had the opportunity to analyze
service call data from a good
sized operator. This information
was derived over a recent week-
end. Several interesting facts
came to light. (By the way, this
company is "radio dispatched",
prides itself on it's fast service
response time and the fact that
their service people carry a com-
plete set of spare components for
all of the models of CD juke-
boxes they operate.)
FACT: Locations tend not to call
for service when a problem oc-
curs. The bartender will call
when not busy or just leave a note
for the day shift.
UPON: There were a
total of 9 currency related calls
from 9:00 AM on Friday until
FACT BASED
m
11 :45 PM Sunday. The average
amount of time that passed be-
tween the actual breakdown and
the location's call was a little over
18 hours. Three bill acceptors
were out of service for more than
2 days before someone called.
Coincidentally, the locations that
took the longest to call are also 3
of this operators' top ten income
producers. Each earns about
$300.00 per week.
FACT: A malfunctioning bill ac-
ceptor directly affects the
machine's income.
FACT BASED UPON: Using the
above average income, we can
assume a loss of about $30.00 per
day per location. Multiply
$30.00 times the number of cur-
rency related calls and you'll see
$270.00 per day in income alone
was lost.
Now lets look at the less obvious
losses and costs.
FACT: Not knowing about a mal-
function costs money.
FACT BASED UPON: In seven of
the nine cases, this operator (who
covers 5 counties) had a service
person in the area of the machine
at the time of the actual malfunc-
tion. Had he known about it, the
bill jam could have been taken
care of almost immediately. In 3
cases, this operators service
people drove past a location with
a problem several times. The
service person didn't know a
problem existed.
STAR* TECH JOURNAL
Not knowing resulted in many
return trips and unnecessary
"down time." On the weekend
being analyzed, not knowing a
problem existed resulted in ap-
proximately 250 miles of extra
driving. Time to drive these ex-
tra miles is about 10 hours at a
labor cost of $150.00. Cost to
operate vehicle an extra 250
miles is $75.00.
Now that I've totally bored you
with all of these facts and figures,
let's look at what not knowing
about a bill jam cost this opera-
tor.
FACT: Not immediately knowing
about the 9 malfunctioning bill
acceptors cost this operator over
$1,000.00
FACT BASED UPON:
Lost Income:
Extra Labor Cost
Extra Miles:
Total Cost:
$ 810.00
$ 150.00
$ 75.00
$1,035.00
FACT: Rock-Ola's SyberSonic
TeleCommunications Module
can save operators who use them
$1,000.00 per weekend.
FACT BASED UPON:
above story.
Read the