ATM on an all-terrain vehicle for a shift camp in Yakutia
We serve ATMs all over the country. In practice, there were detectives with dust in the subway, frosts in the Arctic circle, power surges on the railway, and so on. Somewhere-dry, somewhere-wet, somewhere-midges, somewhere-a dispute about whether the "loaf" can pull the ATM out of the wall.
By the way, from a thin wall of a temporary building, maybe from a thick capital one-no, don't check any more, please!
At the same time, the ATM is iron, rubber, various rollers, and it is clear that these devices sometimes do not stand up. For example, in Russia, due to the climate, ATMs are almost not installed on the street. Instead, they put inter-wall ("street") ATMs, where the machine itself is actually hidden in the building, and only the front part that the client interacts with sticks out. However, most often ATMs are installed inside buildings.
ATMs are very temperature-dependent, so extra protection is needed in cold regions. For example, the first devices were without the "Russian winter" option, and they froze. Then our colleagues began to install simple stoves without electronic control. In the first release of these stoves, plastic and rubber parts were melted inside the ATM.
Monitoring
We solve many problems with the help of sensors: stoves are placed in the safe part of the ATM, which are turned on only when interacting with the machine. That is, the temperature sensors automatically turn on and off the heating.
However, problems arise not only in difficult climatic conditions. For example, for a long time we could not understand the reason for the failure of ATMs in the Moscow metro. And when a study was conducted, it turned out that the material used for train brake pads creates a small red dust.
This dust is not visible, but accumulates in ATMs: the air circulation and cooling system is configured to suck in air. The device was covered with dust from the inside, and the nodes failed. To solve the problem, we installed filtration systems and changed the ventilation scheme — now the device does not suck in air, but blows it out. Problem solved!
The most interesting thing is that there are no such problems with our ATMs in the metro of St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. We do not have a clear answer, perhaps they use other braking systems there. Or it is related to the depth: in St. Petersburg-stations are mostly deep-laid, and ATMs are usually located at the top in the lobby, and not on the platform itself.
Technical difficulties can be tied to the state of the electrical system. For example, we worked with a network of ATMs at railway stations, and when a train left the station, there was a serious power surge. If you do not use various voltage regulators (and sometimes these are literally huge cabinets the size of an ATM), then the electrics burn out at the start of each freight train.
Remote bus stops, closed cities — logistics of a huge country
Geography has an impact not only in terms of climate, but also in terms of logistics. ATM service in a million-plus city or remote settlement in Yakutia will be significantly different. For example, there are ATMs with which there is no full-fledged connection for six months: they can only be reached by plane, by water or by winter road.
ATMs are often located at remote railway stations. Let's say a train passes there once a week, there may be a village nearby, or even there isn't one. In fact, there is only a platform that is very similar to the platform of an electric train.
On such a platform there is a booth or gatehouse of the station warden. There are some irregular buses running from the transport platform to localities. I need to fix an ATM in this godforsaken place.
The engineer buys a ticket and goes. Then you need to spend a week in the field-in winter, in summer, in rain, snow, waiting for the return train. Usually, the engineer makes arrangements with the station keepers to stay with them for a week. The human factor saves, plus railway workers are also interested: everyone wants to withdraw their salary at a working ATM.
Sometimes ATM service is generally coordinated with the movement of the train. For example, the train runs very rarely, and trains are specially delayed at the station for the duration of repairs.
The specialist is as ready as possible, equipped with all spare parts — he does not have time for diagnostics, because the whole train is waiting for one person.
This is usually a large-node replacement. Collectors arrive by train together with the engineer. He repairs the ATM as quickly as possible, they load the money.
Then all together jump on the train, which with some delay (or without it, if fixed quickly) goes on.
Sometimes logistics difficulties are associated with restricted items or passes. In our country, there are closed administrative-territorial areas (ZATO): for example, closed-type enterprises. We also organize a service there: we transport ATMs, service them, and coordinate access.
Why an ATM is an infrastructure element, and how we coped with difficulties during COVID-19
In general, an ATM is an important element of infrastructure, especially in remote regions. Often it becomes the only way to get money in a certain area. For example, we have ATMs in Talakan, Neryungri and many other remote locations where there is no regular transport accessibility.
You can only get an engineer or any spare parts there by plane, ship, or winter road when it's settled down. But people need ATMs for a full life, so no matter how difficult and expensive such a message may be, we are looking for options for delivering people and spare parts for subsequent repairs.
In such remote locations, it is very important that ATMs work constantly and are idle for a minimum amount of time. For example, we have an ATM in a small village near a hydroelectric power station, there are ATMs in shift settlements in Yakutia — even if people are only engaged in work there, you need the opportunity to withdraw money and spend it in local stores.
Sometimes life throws up completely unexpected challenges, as, for example, it was in 2020 with the coronavirus. The state wanted to protect the population from the disease, including by disinfecting everything that people interact with. Naturally, ATMs also fall into this group.
An ATM is a complex, expensive device that can't just be wiped clean with a wet cloth. By itself, an ordinary wet cloth does not disinfect it in any way, and you can not use toxic chemicals: this is dangerous for customers, and expensive equipment can be damaged.
We then developed a disinfection plan, according to which about 20 thousand ATMs were processed. Most of the difficulties were with ATMs in the metro, because there is their maximum load due to the high cross-country traffic.
We collected statistics in the Moscow metro — where we disinfected each device at least 17 times a day. All the side surfaces were cleaned every two hours, and the keyboard and screen were cleaned once an hour. Every hour a special person came, disinfected everything and left.
And so on-at every ATM at all stations.
Unfortunately, many people often do not think about all this behind-the-scenes work. ATMs sometimes break down. Sometimes even purposefully. This is also why ATMs are usually placed in more visible places.
Saving the forest
We are already used to ATMs-faceless boxes of functions, and no one thinks about how everything works and what path each of them has taken. In fact, there is enough of its own bureaucracy and routine: an ATM can not be formed in a convenient place by itself. Behind each device are people who create this comfort for all of us, and the very presence of such devices makes everyday life easier.
Previously, the installation of ATMs was accompanied by a lot of documents on paper, but environmental problems are also not alien to us, and over the past couple of years we have almost completely transferred this to electronic document management, while preserving if not a forest, then a small grove for sure.
Turnkey ATM
That's exactly what Multicarta is doing. All documents, logistics, transportation, attachment, transportation of cassettes — we organize everything. It is much more convenient for the bank when there is one person responsible for the entire life cycle of the ATM — from the moment it appears at the bank to its disposal. This reduces the number of participants in processes, the management resource, and the area of responsibility.
The most difficult part of the "Turnkey ATM" service was to set up everything in a single system. Usually, the bank ordered services from different services, which made it difficult to distinguish the areas of responsibility between performers.
We managed to set up the system. To do this, we analyzed the business processes, removed duplicate stages, and got rid of unnecessary ones. Some of them were automated through electronic document management: previously, a person manually checked the completed documents, but now the program does all this.
Sensors in the ATMs themselves help: they track the availability of bills, calculate the average expense, and predict the remaining balance. Based on this data, a collection schedule is compiled.
We have included a stage of preliminary preparation that was not previously carried out: we go to the warehouses of device suppliers and configure ATMs, check the relevance of software and communication equipment. We also do the transportation of the devices ourselves, so as not to damage them during transportation. Transportation to a new location, rigging and installation are carried out in compliance with the bank's mandatory requirements. We do everything possible to ensure that a ready-made ATM goes to a specific place, so that you can just plug it in and be sure that it can perform its functions.
There are also cassettes in the ATM, and money is stored in these cassettes. They are loaded at the bank's cash center and handed over to collection, and often all this moves from different places. In other words, the ATM is removed from the point where it is located (in a shopping center), and the cassettes are collected by cash collection. In order for this service to work efficiently, we collect this parcel from different places, wrap it in one pallet, and pack it well so that the ATM does not suffer in any way. And when he arrives at a new place, this parcel also breaks up again into two parts: the ATM goes to where it will stand, and the cassettes go to the bank's cash center.
Later, we added another interesting feature-selecting the optimal location for installing the ATM. Conditionally, the bank says: "I want an ATM in this mall." An engineer comes from us, evaluates the customer flow using a specially designed algorithm, calculates the attractiveness of a particular installation location, where there will be maximum cross-country traffic, ease of use, and so on. And if the bank initially said where to put the device, now it is already saying: "Go and evaluate which specific ATM and where exactly to put it in this place."
Now in our logistics, when ATMs change their location, approximately 350 movements are made every month. Among the interesting and memorable ones, for example, we organized the delivery of an ATM for Formula 1 in Sochi. There, in addition to the ATM itself, an installation in the form of a racing helmet was installed, and the ATM stood inside it. Logistics, assembly and maintenance were all our responsibility.
By the way, the helmet still continues to delight visitors to Sochi.
