Coffee machines
from Melitta Professional
in the IoT

Melitta Professional



Melitta Professional XT8 Coffee Machine

A passion for coffee enjoyment since 1908, Melitta Professional supports its partner companies in the out-of-home market with comprehensive expertise in coffee, coffee machines, technical customer service, digital solutions and financing according to their individual needs.

Whether in bakeries, restaurants, hotels, or businesses – the professional fully automatic coffee machines from Melitta are now represented worldwide. They prepare a variety of different coffee drinks and also generate valuable data.

Melitta Professional recognized the potential of IoT technology early and took the initiative to digitize its global fleet of machines as early as 2016.

The goal of this groundbreaking strategy is to not only enhance the company but also benefit its B2B customers by

  • significantly increasing operational efficiency,
  • minimizing downtimes,
  • continuously improving customer service, and
  • driving product innovations.

The Challenge

The challenge was to develop a globally deployable solution that enables bidirectional communication between the coffee machine and a cloud-based management system to manage firmware updates, recipe changes, and configurations remotely and centrally.

At the same time, the solution needed to be flexible enough to quickly respond to specific customer requirements.

The Solution

In collaboration with INSIDE M2M, Melitta Professional developed a comprehensive solution, the Melitta IoT Hub, based on the IoT Platform M2MGate.

The Melitta IoT Hub allows seamless connection of all coffee machines, both current generations and retrofitted existing machines. A central service portal enables the management and monitoring of the entire fleet of devices.

The Melitta IoT Hub enables fleet-wide bidirectional remote access to the coffee machines, provides the internationally active customer service with real-time insights into machine status, and supports predictive maintenance.

Melitta Professional Coffee Beans
Coffee quality in Melitta%nbsp;service portal

Global Recipe Updates at the Push of a Button

A large customer of Melitta Professional faced the challenge of updating 15,000 fully automatic coffee machines nationwide with seasonal recipes. Before the implementation of the IoT hub, this meant a tremendous logistical effort with technician deployments on-site.

Thanks to the Melitta IoT Hub, all machines can be updated centrally. This allows for quick adaptation to seasonal trends and also significantly reduces operating costs.

Melitta Professional Machine showing Linked Deal

Linked Deals

The Melitta IoT Hub opens up fascinating marketing opportunities at the point of sale: The displays of the coffee machines can now be targeted with individual images and videos.

While customers wait for their freshly brewed coffee, their attention is cleverly directed to other products and current offers. This creates high cross-selling potential, which can significantly contribute to increased sales.

Melitta Professional Coffee Cup with data-optimized coffee

Data-Driven Optimization of Coffee Quality

Thanks to the IoT Hub, Melitta Professional achieves great progress in quality assurance. Monitoring over 145 attributes per machine provides valuable insights into condition and performance.

This allows early detection and correction of variances in coffee quality, such as brewing temperatures or grind consistency. This ensures consistent coffee quality and allows for improvements to recipes based on real data.

The result: higher customer satisfaction and strengthened brand reputation.

Melitta Professional Service Vehicle

Increased Efficiency through Proactive Maintenance

The integration of the IoT Hub has revolutionized machine maintenance at Melitta Professional. Instead of only reacting to reported issues, the technology allows proactive detection of potential problems.

By continuously analyzing daily data sets, wear patterns can be identified and maintenance can be precisely planned.

This reduces downtimes, lowers maintenance costs, and increases machine availability. Additionally, Melitta uses this data to continuously develop the machines further.

Smartphone operation of an XT8

Remote Coffee

As a quick response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IoT Hub from Melitta was expanded with an innovative feature: Users can obtain drinks without touching the machine.

By scanning a QR code on the display with a smartphone, the user is directed to the product selection of the coffee machine and can start the dispensing of the selected product without touching the display.

With "Remote Coffee," Melitta offers its customers safe and germ-free coffee enjoyment and demonstrates how IoT technology can be practically and timely utilized to solve real problems.

IoT Hub Components

Melitta IoT Hub: Continuous Optimization through Innovative Impulses

The ongoing improvement of the Melitta IoT Hub is based on valuable suggestions from Melitta customers as well as creative ideas from the Melitta service and sales team.

In close coordination with product management and technology, each idea is carefully examined for its practical applicability and feasibility. Once potential is identified, a detailed planning phase follows.

This cooperative approach regularly leads to new added values and innovative solutions – and strengthens the successful partnership with Melitta Professional.

Melitta Professional Coffee Beans
‘It can always happen that one of our customers has a special requirement that needs to be implemented quickly. And something like this is possible with a partner like INSIDE M2M, who has the flexibility and willingness to do so.’
Sascha Keunecke, Head of Digitalisation at Melitta Professional Coffee Solutions

Digitalization at Melitta Professional: Data from coffee machines without much effort and with maximum benefit

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