At Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business in Hanover, NH, the dining hall includes a new touchless self-service kiosk that reduces checkout times dramatically. By eliminating human interaction, item handling, and barcode scanning, transactions times have been cut to as little as 10 seconds.

The kiosks are from Mashgin, a Palo Alto-based company that has deployed its touchless self-checkout systems at more than 3,700 locations across the country. Customers include corporate cafeterias at Fortune 500 companies, professional sports stadiums, convenience stores, and more than 30 higher ed institutions.

At Dartmouth, students select their products and set them on the kiosk’s tray. Cameras automatically identify the items visually from any angle. This eliminates the need to move items individually from tray to tray or fumble with products to locate and scan barcodes. Even plated items – such as salads or hot foods – are recognized by the system, weighed, and priced.

Cameras automatically identify items from any angle, eliminating the need to fumble with products to locate and scan barcodes. Even plated items are recognized, weighed, and priced

“We initially piloted Mashgin’s technology in a 24/7 unmanned convenience store, and our students loved the technology and ease of use,” says Amelia Heidenreich, General Manager of Tuck Dining and Catering.  “We decided to add a second unit to our dining hall to increase the speed of service.”

The implementation process for the kiosks at Dartmouth was simple.

Items with a barcode were imported using their “SKU” and linked to existing items in Mashgin’s global database. Items without a barcode, for example a plate of food, were added to the system by capturing images from different angles.

“Mashgin sets everything up during the deployment process, which typically takes less than an hour,” says Brandon Scott, Mashgin’s Vice President of Sales. “After deployment, the service staff at the dining facility can add new products themselves in less than 30 seconds per item.”

Though some items are enrolled in the system using a barcode, from that point forward, all items are identified by computer vision.

“That makes it more convenient for the user because they just put everything down no matter if it’s a bottle of water, a piece of fruit or a slice of pizza,” explains Scott. “Mashgin identifies and rings up everything within one second.”

The kiosks reduce queuing and friction that often deter customers. Additionally, faster throughput translates into more revenue for the dining operator.

Today, Dartmouth uses both the kiosk technology and normal checkout lines with cashiers. In the future, Heidenreich says they may consider deploying more kiosks.

To see the Mashgin kiosk in action, click on the video at the top of this page.