JP2009282657A - Vending machine - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vending machine for easily applying point information applied to a storage medium to the other storage medium. <P>SOLUTION: An electronic settlement control part 10 of an electronic settlement part 100 which has received commodity information showing that commodity has been purchased from a control part 103 accepts input(reading) of the point information from an input/output part 12. On the basis of the combination of the point information of a migration origin and the point information of a migration destination designated by a display part 13, a point migration processing part 15 is instructed to migrate the points of the designated migration origin, and the point migration processing part 15 migrates the points through the input/output part 12. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a vending machine.

There is a point service in which point information is given to a storage medium such as a point card held by a user as a privilege when selling a product or providing a service. The point information given to the storage medium by the point service can be used for purchase of products to be sold and use of the provided service, and is useful for improving the sales of the business providing the point service.
In general, the point information differs depending on the dealers to be provided, and different point services are provided when the dealers purchasing the products are different.
In Patent Document 1, when the provided point service is the same and the point information provided by the point service is separated into a plurality of point cards, all of the point information is stored in one point card. Techniques for counting are disclosed.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-068357

  While various types of point services are provided, a technology that allows point information of different point services to be transferred to point information of other point services is disclosed.

  However, the transfer of point information using technologies such as those described above requires the use of a point-of-sale counter or a computer such as a personal computer, which is cumbersome and requires a lot of trouble. However, it takes a lot of time for the point information to be actually transferred.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a vending machine that allows point information valued in a storage medium to be easily valued in another storage medium.

  In order to achieve the above object, the invention of claim 1 adds point information managed by a predetermined point system added to a storage medium to another storage medium on the condition that a merchandise sales operation is performed. A mode transition means for converting to another point information managed by another point system and adding to another storage medium, and a transition to the point processing mode by the mode transition means; Point information receiving means for receiving point information, type specifying means for specifying the type of exchange destination point information, and converting point information received by the point information receiving means into point information of the type specified by the type specifying means Point information conversion processing means, and a point valued in the other storage medium The information processing apparatus further includes a type determining unit that determines whether the type of information is the type of the point information specified by the type specifying unit, and the point information conversion processing unit is operated by the type specifying unit by the type determining unit. When it is determined that the specified point information of the type is a valued storage medium, the point information conversion process is executed.

  Further, in the invention of claim 2, in the invention of claim 1, in the point information conversion processing means, the type of point information received by the point information receiving means is the same as the type specified by the type specifying means. In the case, the point information received by the point information receiving unit is added to another storage medium, the point information of the storage medium to which the exchange source point information is added is invalidated, and the point information receiving unit receives the point information. If the type of point information is different from the type specified by the type specifying unit, the point information received by the point information receiving unit is converted into point information of the type specified by the type specifying unit and another storage medium Of the storage medium to which the point information of the exchange source was added To run the point information conversion process to disable Into information.

  The invention of claim 3 further comprises point number designating means for designating a predetermined number of points among the number of points of the point information received by the point information receiving means in the invention of claim 1 or 2, The point information conversion processing means executes the point information conversion processing for the number of points designated by the point number designation means among the point information accepted by the point information acceptance means.

  Further, the invention of claim 4 is the invention of claim 1 or 2, further comprising setting means for setting the number of points that can be converted by the point information conversion processing means for the amount of goods sold by the selling means. And the point information conversion processing means executes the point information conversion processing when the number of points designated by the point number designation means is equal to or less than the number of points set by the setting means.

  According to the present invention, point information valued in a storage medium by a vending machine installed in various places and normally operating for 24 hours can be easily valued in another storage medium. The effect of becoming.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of a vending machine according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is an example of a diagram illustrating a configuration of a vending machine according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, a vending machine is a device that sells products as consideration for money and pays out the products by paying the corresponding money, in addition to paying money by coins and banknotes, as well as mobile terminals and IC cards. It is possible to pay with the monetary value stored in the storage medium.

  Further, this storage medium further stores point information. This point information is information that is given as a privilege when purchasing a product or giving or receiving a service, and since it has a monetary value, it can be used to purchase a product and can be exchanged for a specific product or service. It is.

  There are a plurality of types of point information depending on the issuer and the form of use, and the point information that can be used differs depending on the service or product that uses the point information. For example, even if the quantity of different point information issued by two companies of a certain company (hereinafter referred to as “the number of points”) is the same, the value of both points may be different.

  The vending machine shown in FIG. 1 includes an electronic settlement unit 100, a bill processing unit 101, a coin processing unit 102, a control unit 103, and a product payout unit 104, and stores point information valued in a storage medium into other storages. A process of converting to point information valued on the medium and transferring it is performed. At this time, the identity of the point information of the transfer source and the transfer destination does not matter.

  Moreover, the point information to be transferred is not only the point information stored in the storage medium used for purchasing the product sold by the vending machine, but also the point information stored in a storage medium other than the storage medium used for purchasing the product. Can also be transferred.

  The banknote processing unit 101 and the coin processing unit 102 recognize the inserted banknotes and coins and perform settlement with money. The bill processing unit 101 and the coin processing unit 102 notify the amount of processed money to the control unit 103, and the control unit 103 sells the bills and the amount of coins inserted into the bill processing unit 101 and the coin processing unit 102. When it is determined that the price is higher than the price of the product to be sold, the product paying unit 104 is instructed to pay out the product, and when the difference is generated, the difference is refunded.

  The product payout unit 104 performs payout by carrying out the designated product based on the product payout instruction from the control unit 103. The control unit 103 at this time is the main control in the vending machine, and controls all processes in the sale of products. Further, the electronic settlement unit 100 performs electronic settlement processing using valuable information valued in the storage medium. The electronic payment unit 100 includes an electronic payment control unit 10, an information processing unit 11, an input / output unit 12, a display unit 13, a communication unit 14, a point transfer processing unit 15, an information storage unit 16, and a timer unit 17. Is done.

  In the electronic payment control unit 100, the electronic payment control unit 10 receives a purchase completion notification indicating that a product has been purchased from the control unit 103. At this time, the electronic settlement control unit 10 displays a screen as shown in FIG. 3A on the display unit 13 and inquires of the purchaser of the product whether or not the point information valued in the storage medium is to be transferred. .

  When the point information transfer process is instructed, the state shifts to a state where the transfer process is possible (point processing mode), and the timer unit 17 is instructed to measure time. The purchase completion notification received at this time includes the product information (product name, price, quantity, etc.) of the product for which the product has been purchased, and the purchase time.

  The display unit 13 is a touch panel display, and accepts an instruction from the purchaser through an operation on a display screen. Of course, it is not limited to a touch panel type, and a configuration in which an operation panel is provided elsewhere and a purchaser gives an instruction using the operation panel may be used.

  When the electronic payment control unit 10 enters the point processing mode when the point information transfer process is instructed, a screen as shown in FIG. 3B is displayed on the display unit 13, and the transfer source and transfer destination point information is displayed. The combination of types can be specified. When the purchaser of the product selects the combination on this screen, the screen as shown in FIG. 4A is displayed, and the point information of the transfer source is input to the input / output unit 12 for the purchaser of the product. Instruct.

  When the purchaser inputs (reads) the point information by holding or bringing the storage medium storing the source point information over or in contact with the input / output unit 12, the information processing unit 11 determines the point type and the number of points from the read point information. Recognize

  When the information processing unit 11 recognizes the point information, the electronic settlement control unit 10 determines whether the point type indicated by the transfer source point information in the combination specified on the screen as shown in FIG. to decide. When the point information of the transfer source in the specified combination is determined, processing for determining the point information of the transfer source is performed.

  In this determination process, the number of transition points to be transferred is specified from the number of points input by the input / output unit 12. As a method for designating the number of transfer points at this time, there is a method using the screen shown in FIG.

  Subsequently, the electronic settlement control unit 10 performs pre-migration processing for performing the migration processing for the number of migration points determined by the decision processing. This pre-migration process is a process of determining the number of points to be migrated by reading information (point information migration ratio, etc.) in the migration of point information stored in the information storage unit 16. In addition, as the pre-migration processing, the number of migration points designated and the number of points desired to be migrated are transmitted to the center device 120 such as the management center via the communication unit 14 and approved by the center device 120 of the management center. Thus, the number of points to be transferred is determined.

  When the number of transfer points to be transferred is determined by such pre-transfer processing, the purchaser is instructed to input (read) the point information of the transfer source. When this point information is input (read), the number of points obtained by subtracting the number of points to be transferred is output (written).

  Next, a screen instructing to hold the storage medium to which the point information is transferred over the input / output unit 12 is displayed on the display unit 13, and recognition processing is performed when the storage medium is held by the purchaser, and point transfer is performed The processing unit 15 converts the point information into the type of point information stored in the transfer destination storage medium, and performs processing for transferring the point information.

  In this transition process, the transition process is invalidated when the time counted by the timer unit 17 has passed a predetermined time. When the point information transfer process is completed in this way, the state is switched to a sales state in which the product can be purchased.

  In the above description, all the designated points can be transferred, but the electronic payment control unit 10 specifies the amount of product information included in the purchase completion notification received from the control unit 103 and stores it in the information storage unit 16. The number of points that can be transferred may be limited using the stored “information on the number of points that can be transferred with respect to the purchase price of the product”.

  As the “information on the number of points that can be transferred with respect to the purchase price of the product” stored in the information storage unit 16 in this case, for example, there is information in which an upper limit number of transferable points is set for the purchase price. This information may be configured to be set for each point type.

  FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a flow of point information transfer processing performed in the vending machine according to the embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 2, a product to be sold is purchased by the user, and the process is started by displaying a screen for instructing the start of the point transfer process shown in FIG.

  The screen shown in FIG. 3A is a screen that is displayed when a product is purchased. When the [Yes] button 301 is pressed, the point transfer mode is started, and the [No] button 302 is displayed. When the button is pressed, the product enters a normal state where the product to be sold can be purchased. The screen shown in FIG. 3A is not displayed after a certain time has elapsed since the purchase of the product, and the product to be sold can be purchased in the same manner as when the [No] button 302 is pressed. It becomes a state.

  In FIG. 2, it is determined whether or not the [Yes] button 301 is pressed within a predetermined time while the screen as shown in FIG. 3A is displayed (201). If the button is not pressed within a certain time (NO in 201), the normal merchandise sales state is entered and the processing in this flowchart is terminated. If the [Yes] button 301 is pressed within a certain time (YES in 201) Performs the following point transfer processing.

  First, a point transfer screen as shown in FIG. 3B is displayed (202). The point transfer screen shown in FIG. 3B shows combinations of transfer source points and transfer destination points that can be transferred, and the user designates any combination and presses the [Confirm] button 306. Thus, the point transfer process with the combination designated is started. At this time, when the [Modify] button 305 is pressed, the specified combination can be modified and changed.

  A plurality of combinations of point transitions shown in FIG. 3B can be provided in cooperation with a company that provides point information, and other combinations that are not displayed at a time are sequentially pressed by pressing the scroll button 304. It is displayed and can be specified.

It should be noted that when the “cancel transfer” button 303 is pressed, the point transfer process is terminated and a normal state in which a product can be purchased is set.
When any combination is specified on such a screen and the [Confirm] button 306 is pressed by the user, an instruction to present an electronic money card associated with the specified transfer source point (transfer source point) is given. The screen to be displayed is displayed (203). An example of this screen is shown in FIG.

  The screen shown in FIG. 4A is a screen for instructing presentation by holding an electronic money card in order to recognize the transfer source point. The electronic money card is held over a card reader / writer and information about the point ( Recognition processing is performed by reading (point type, number of points) (204). A detailed flow of this recognition processing is shown in FIG.

  When the transfer source point recognition process is performed by holding the electronic money card, it is determined whether the point is recognized by the recognition process (205). If the points are recognized (YES in 205), a screen as shown in FIG. 4B is displayed to determine the number of points to be transferred (206).

  If the point cannot be recognized (NO in 205), a screen indicating that the point information cannot be recognized as shown in FIG. 5A is displayed (219). Incidentally, when the screen shown in FIG. 5 (a) is displayed, there may be cases where the reading is simply not successful. (220) If it is within a certain time (YES in 220), the electronic money card can be read again, and step 204 and subsequent steps are repeated. On the other hand, after a certain period of time has elapsed since purchase of the product and the point transfer state is entered (NO in 220), initialization processing is performed (221) and the processing is terminated.

  In the screen shown in FIG. 4B when the points can be recognized, the number of points to be transferred can be specified by pressing the soft numeric keypad 308. The number of points specified by pressing the soft numeric keypad 308 is It is displayed in the point display box 307. The example shown in FIG. 4B shows a state in which “1000” points are designated as the number of points to be transferred.

  By depressing the [Confirm] button 306 with the number of points specified in this way, the number of points of the transfer source is determined. Further, when the [Modify] button 305 is pressed, the specified number of points can be modified and changed. Incidentally, the point transfer processing is terminated when the [transfer cancel] button 303 is pressed.

  When the number of points of the transfer source is determined, in order to read the point number from the point of transfer source, the electronic money card is presented again from the user, and the point type and the number of points associated with the electronic money card are recognized. If necessary, user authentication processing is performed (207).

  The authentication process in this case is arbitrary, and is configured to be performed only when authentication by inputting a password or the like is necessary when using points, for example. Incidentally, the detailed flow of the recognition process is shown in FIG.

  If the point information is recognized and authentication is required by the recognition process and the user authentication process, it is determined whether or not the point information has been authenticated (208). If the point information cannot be recognized or the user cannot be authenticated (208) 5), a screen indicating that the point information cannot be recognized or cannot be authenticated is displayed (224). After this display, it is determined whether it is within a certain period of time after entering the point transfer state (225). If it is within the certain period of time (YES at 225), the electronic money card can be read again. Step 207 and subsequent steps are repeated. On the other hand, after a certain period of time has elapsed since purchase of a product and the point transfer state is entered (NO in 225), initialization processing is performed (221), and the processing is terminated.

  On the other hand, if the user can be authenticated when the point information can be recognized and necessary (YES in 208), an instruction to present an electronic money card associated with the transfer destination point is shown in FIG. ) Is displayed (209). Then, the counting of the elapsed time until receiving the electronic money card associated with the transfer destination point is started (210). If it is determined that the fixed time has passed (211: YES), the initialization process is performed (221) to end the point transfer.

  The screen shown in FIG. 5B is used when the number of points designated on the screen as shown in FIG. 4B is transferred by the combination of point transfer shown by the screen as shown in FIG. The transfer state between the transfer source point number and the transfer destination point number is shown. The screen shown in FIG. 5B displays that “1000 points of XX points are transferred to 1000 points of XX points”. In other words, the XX point and the XX point are equivalently transferred to the point.

  In the screen shown in FIG. 5B as well, the point transfer is canceled by pressing the [transfer cancel] button 303.

  When the electronic money card associated with the transfer destination point is held over the card reader / writer while the screen shown in FIG. 5B is displayed, a point type recognition process is performed (212). ). It is determined whether the point is recognized by this recognition processing (213).

  If it is determined that it has been recognized (YES in 213), the point transition in the state shown in the screen of FIG. 5B is performed (214). It is determined whether or not the point transfer is completed by this point transfer process (215), and when the transfer is completed normally (YES in 215), a screen indicating the completion of the point transfer as shown in FIG. 6B. Is displayed (217).

  The screen shown in FIG. 6 (b) is a screen showing that the migration of the migration source point and the migration destination point has been completed, and FIG. “Move to 1000 points of XX points” is displayed. If the migration has not been completed (NO in 215), a message indicating that the migration is in progress is performed (216), and the completion of the migration process is awaited.

  On the other hand, when point information cannot be recognized by the point type recognition process, for example, when an electronic money card associated with a point number different from the type of point information of the transfer destination designated for the point transfer combination is presented, etc. Then, the screen shown in FIG. 6A is displayed to determine whether a predetermined time has elapsed (223). If the predetermined time has elapsed (YES in 223), initialization processing is performed and the processing is terminated (221). If the predetermined time has not elapsed (NO in 223), the point type recognition process can be performed again.

  Incidentally, the processing from when the electronic money card is held over the card reader / writer at step 212 until the screen indicating the completion of point transfer at step 217 is displayed while the electronic money card is held up.

  In the processing of the flowchart of FIG. 2 described above, the electronic money card associated with the transfer source point information and the electronic money card associated with the transfer destination point information are presented by holding each time. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the electronic money card associated with the transfer source point information and the transfer destination point information is inserted into the vending machine configured as shown in FIG. It may be a configuration in which a card insertion base or a card installation base for placing a card is provided. In this case, any card is inserted or installed, and there is no need to repeatedly perform operations such as holding the card.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a detailed flow of the recognition processing shown in step 204 and step 212 in the flowchart of FIG. In FIG. 7, first, card information and point information (point type and number of points) are read from an electronic money card held over a card reader (701). Next, it is determined whether the point information has been read by this reading process (702). If the point information can be read (YES in 702), the point type and the number of points are recognized (703). In this case, the electronic money card is registered with point information.

  If the point information (point type, number of points) cannot be read by the electronic money card (NO in 702), for example, only point identification information for identifying points is stored as card information, and the points are stored in the management center. If it is managed by the center device, the center device is inquired based on the point identification information (704).

  In response to this inquiry, it is determined whether or not the number of points has been acquired from the center device (705). When the point type and the number of points are acquired (YES in 705), the point type and the number of points can be recognized. (703).

  If the point type and the number of points cannot be acquired from the center device (NO in 705), these are not recognized (706).

  In step 207 in the flowchart of FIG. 2, if it is necessary to identify the user when using the points, the processing shown in FIG. 8 is performed. FIG. 8 shows a flow of processing when authentication information is input when points are used in the processing shown in FIG.

  In FIG. 8, when the card information / points are read by the card reader / writer (701), the authentication information is received (801). For example, the user inputs a password.

  An authentication request including the input password is transmitted to an authentication server or the like (802), and it is determined whether or not authentication has been performed (803). If not authenticated (NO in 803), the process ends. If authenticated (YES in 803), the process from step 702 shown in FIG. 7 is performed.

  FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a detailed flow of the process of step 206 shown in FIG. 2 for determining the number of points of transfer source in a state where the number of points that can be transferred is set for the amount of purchased goods. . In FIG. 9, when the point number of the transfer source is designated using the screen as shown in FIG. 4B (901), the number of points that can be transferred with respect to the amount of the product purchased by the user ( The number of transferable points) is read (902). The number of transferable points is a value specified for each amount as the number of points that can be transferred with respect to the transfer source points of the combination specified on the screen of FIG.

  Subsequently, it is determined whether the number of transferable points is larger than the designated number of points to be transferred (903). If the number of transferable points is larger (YES in 903), the designated transfer source point number is determined as the transfer source point number (904). If the specified number of points to be transferred is larger than the number of points that can be transferred (NO in 903), it indicates that point transfer is not possible because the number of points that can be transferred is specified. (905) The point of the transfer source can be designated again.

  The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above and shown in the drawings, and can be implemented with appropriate modifications within a range not changing the gist thereof.

An example of a figure showing composition of a vending machine in an embodiment of the invention. The flowchart which shows the flow of the point transfer process performed with the vending machine in embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of a display screen. The figure which shows the example of a display screen. The figure which shows the example of a display screen. The figure which shows the example of a display screen. The flowchart which shows the flow of the process which recognizes the point information in this invention. The flowchart which shows the flow of the process which recognizes the point information in this invention, and the process which authenticates a user. The flowchart which shows the detailed flow of the process which determines the transfer origin point in this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Electronic payment control part 11 Information processing part 12 Input / output part 13 Display part 14 Communication part 15 Point transfer process part 16 Information storage part 17 Timer part 100 Electronic payment part 101 Banknote process part 102 Coin process part 103 Control part 104 Goods payout part

Claims (4)

Converting point information managed by a predetermined point system added to a storage medium to other point information managed by another point system or added to another storage system on the condition that a product sales operation has been performed Mode transition means for shifting to a point processing mode to be added to another storage medium,
Point information receiving means for receiving point information of an exchange source after shifting to the point processing mode by the mode shifting means;
A type specifying means for specifying the type of point information of the exchange destination;
A vending machine comprising point information conversion processing means for converting the point information received by the point information receiving means into point information of the type specified by the type specifying means,
Further comprising a type determining means for determining whether the type of the point information added to the other storage medium is the type of the point information specified by the type specifying means;
The point information conversion processing unit executes the point information conversion processing when the type determination unit determines that the point information of the type specified by the type specification unit is added to the storage medium. Vending machine. The point information conversion processing means includes:
When the type of point information received by the point information receiving unit is the same as the type specified by the type specifying unit, the point information received by the point information receiving unit is added to another storage medium and the exchange Disable the point information of the storage medium to which the original point information was added,
If the type of point information received by the point information receiving unit is different from the type specified by the type specifying unit, the point information received by the point information receiving unit is the type of point information specified by the type specifying unit. The vending machine according to claim 1, wherein the vending machine executes point information conversion processing for invalidating the point information of the storage medium to which the point information of the exchange source is added as well as being converted to the other storage medium. A point number designating unit for designating a predetermined number of points among the number of points of the point information received by the point information receiving unit;
3. The point information conversion processing means executes the point information conversion processing for the number of points designated by the point number designation means among the point information received by the point information acceptance means. Vending machine. Further comprising setting means for setting the number of points that can be converted by the point information conversion processing means for the amount of goods sold by the selling means,
The point information conversion processing means executes the point information conversion processing when the number of points designated by the point number designation means is equal to or less than the number of points set by the setting means. Vending machine.

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