Wilson Baker Inc. Installs Wisdom Intelligent Device Management

GREENSBORO, N. C. -- Wilson Baker Inc. of Milton, Del., installed Gilbarco Veeder-Root's Wisdom Intelligent Device Management (IDM) Systems at two of its seven convenience store sites to help the company remotely monitor coolers, heating, air conditioning, lighting and other devices, in order to manage energy consumption, overall operations costs and proactively address potential problems before they impact profitability, the company reported.

"Wisdom provides a complete picture of what's going on at our sites," Mark Baker of Wilson Baker, said in a released statement. "We can see the big picture in one view, or dive in to see the details. The system alerts us when equipment is operating outside pre-determined ranges."

Wisdom IDM enables retailers to remotely monitor and control in real-time the various devices and systems at their stores, including:

• Heating and air conditioning systems
• Coolers
• Lights
• Food and beverage equipment, including consumables such as CO2
• People counters
• Fuel forecourt equipment

"We found that one of our walk-in freezers had a problem with a compressor that was working constantly to keep up," Baker said. "This gave us the opportunity to fix the problem before it failed completely and before we lost inventory. Wisdom helped us learn that some of our cooler door heaters weren't working properly. Without Wisdom, we might not have known to fix them."

The system helps retailers maximize equipment uptime through proactive maintenance, reduce food waste, cut energy consumption, optimize the store environment, track and analyze the effect of promotions, and benchmark equipment and store performance, according to the vendor.

Wisdom IDM provides a suite of browser-based dashboards, reporting, alarming and decision support applications for easy management access and review, and it enables management by exception. For example, a retailer who established in advance that a given cooler should operate within a specified overall temperature range will get an alarm notice if the cooler temperature goes out of that range, according to the vendor.

"Wisdom IDM provides a tangible return on investment by reducing the total operations spend, improving equipment uptime and consolidating data from different parts of the c-store for better, quicker decision-making and a competitive edge," Fawaz Khalil, Gilbarco's director of service marketing, said in a released statement. "Wisdom allows c-store owners to manage their businesses from virtually anywhere."

Gilbarco Veeder-Root will exhibit Wisdom IDM at the NACS Show, Oct. 6-8 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Booth 1039.