Loca Service continues to develop its innovations, creating new connected solutions for refrigerated units.
Tomorrow’s refrigeration units will be intelligent and connected! This is the declared ambition of Loca Service, which has created IoT solutions to connect its cabinets. Aimed at food manufacturers and supermarkets, Loca Service offers a new generation of connected solutions adaptable to all types of refrigeration equipment.
To meet the ecological, economic and commercial challenges faced by its distribution and industrial partners, Loca Service’s R&D department has developed a portfolio of connected solutions. Its IoT solutions collect, send and analyze information on the life of furniture in real time. Loca Service has worked around two connected pillars: “ICE-CONNECT” for technical monitoring and preventive maintenance, and DATA-CONNECT for marketing and sales performance. Two connected and complementary solutions.
DATA-CONNECT :
The Data-Connect solution collects precise information on product marketing performance. “Data is the key issue for our customers. We had to enable them to analyze and track the performance of their operations implemented with our furniture”, explains Maxime SOREL, Marketing Manager.
How do we do it? By equipping the refrigerated display cases with sensors developed entirely in-house. The R&D teams did not opt for RFID, seeking to develop a more reliable and agile solution. Sensors will measure footfall around the cabinet, while other sensors will detect the placement and removal of products in real time. In this way, Data-Connect ensures precise monitoring of the furniture’s stock. Its alarm system anticipates stock-outs, a major challenge for retailers and manufacturers alike. This exclusive solution also makes it possible to measure the marketing effectiveness of an operation, analyze consumer preferences, and track sales trends over the course of the day, week and/or entire operation. The footfall index enables manufacturers to assess their brand’s visibility and correlate it with the marketing tools used. As for retailers, they can now “map” their stores and find out which are their selling points, their hot and cold zones.
“Until now, data has been collected at the checkout and not at the point where the shopper makes a decision in the store. Is the product taken, then put back? Picked up, then bought? Data Connect will provide a more detailed analysis of purchasing behavior,” explains Maxime SOREL.
Data will be accessible via customized reports, built around customer needs and analyzed by Loca Service experts.
ICE-CONNECT :
Ice-Connect is a technology developed exclusively by the company to monitor, in real time, the cold production and power consumption of a piece of furniture. A box fitted with probes and measuring devices is adapted to the unit, enabling real-time readings to be taken.
The unit automatically and autonomously communicates temperature monitoring and cooling curves. An alarm system ensures rapid response in the event of a malfunction. This avoids breaks in the cold chain and associated product losses. The box goes even further, tracking power consumption and providing an alarm in the event of an incident or power failure.
“Automatic temperature recording is a real time-saver for professionals. By monitoring the various parameters of the cabinet, we can implement preventive maintenance and avoid breakdowns and losses” Maxime SOREL
Ice-Connect also enables furniture to be geolocated. This is of great interest to manufacturers, who can track the furniture’s location before, during or after a sales operation.
All data is accessible on a secure platform. It can be consulted from a telephone, tablet or computer via an application, by means of a subscription. It includes historical readings, technical maintenance follow-up and all the data collected from its fleet of equipped refrigerated units.
In March, the company launched KLASSA, the first refrigerated cabinet to achieve energy class A. KLASSA is a 1.3m-wide, 605-litre refrigerated display case with a temperature range from 0 to 4°C, and 80% less daily consumption than an equivalent open wall-mounted unit. KLASSA combines commercial and energy performance.
Read the article hereLoca Service: innovation and performance Since 1981, this family-run business has become a leader in refrigerated display case rental. With a complete range of over 300 references, it is a local player with 11 branches covering the whole of France. As both a rental company and a manufacturer of refrigerated display cases, the company stays as close as possible to its customers’ needs. Loca Service is a genuine service provider for supermarkets and food manufacturers, offering its partners a one-stop-shop for a wide range of complementary services: POS development, logistics, connected objects, dismantling, etc. At the heart of its business? 75 cross-functional professions. The Northern France-based company employs refrigeration specialists, bodybuilders, graphic designers, engineers and drivers – in all, over 300 people dedicated to performance and innovation. All services are in-house. When a customer needs maintenance, Loca Service calls in its own technicians, and when a customer wants to decorate his furniture with a special POP display, the company has its own graphics studio and print shop. And so, over more than 40 years, Loca Service has grown to become a pioneer of innovation in its sector. “25 years ago, we were already offering closed furniture for energy efficiency. It’s in our DNA to keep pushing innovation,” Maxime Sorel, Marketing Manager.
