Overthinking and Underthinking

There’s a vending machine in my office that I’ve used at least a thousand times, and only now paid attention to the way the contents are stocked.   Maybe I’m thinking too much about things (a habit I can’t seem to break, but it’s served me well), but the way in which beverages were arranged struck me as the outcome of a conflict of interests in which the wrong interest may have won.

Specifically: this is one of those vending machines in which the bottles are fetched by a mechanical device that carries them to a dispensing slot.  (I’d share a photo, but photography is verboten in the office and twenty minutes on Google failed to produce a satisfactory shot.)    In itself that’s a very clever innovation, as the old machines that dropped the product agitated the content, which can be amusing to anyone who doesn’t get sprayed, but is less amusing to the customer.

But I digress (something of another habit, same disclaimer) …

In particular, I noticed that the merchandise was arranged to put the most popular items (bottled water and name-brand cola) nearest the top, with more unusual items (sports drinks and pineapple soda) nearest the bottom.   Presumably this was done to put the most popular items at eye level, such that a person who approached the machine would see what they most likely wanted right away.

It’s a valid and logical choice from a merchandising perspective, though likely more appropriate to getting attention from passers-by in a pedestrian area than dispensing beverages in an office building (where it might make more sense to put more high-margin items in a more prominent location), but consider the other consequences of this decision:

• In terms of operations planning, it’s likely a poor choice because the mechanical device that fetches the drinks from their shelves must travel furthest for the most popular items, increasing wear and tear on the machines.
• In terms of work design, it’s likewise a poor choice because the serviceman who restocks the machine must bend and twist his body repeatedly to reload the items that most frequently need restocking.
• In terms of quality control, it’s also a poor choice because warm air rises and cold air pools, meaning that the most popular items which rotate quickly are situated in the warmest part of the compartment, and the slow-moving items are kept in a place they would cool more rapidly
• In terms of customer experience, it’s also a poor choice because the buyer must wait longer for the more popular items because the mechanical arm travels further.

So, again, the decision to stock the most popular items at eye level served one purpose (merchandising) but undermined at least four others (sustainable operations, work design, quality control, and customer experience), so I can’t help wondering if this was the right choice.   While I am likely guilty of thinking about this matter far too much, the vending company is likely guilty of thinking about it far too little, which I expect is decidedly worse.