Introducing Our Steaming Hot New Product: The Tulip Coffee Kit

Ask yourself: What’s the most important machine for your operation’s productivity? What device helps your team put their best foot forward — providing them with the energy boost they need to drive value for your organization each and every day?

If you get down to the basics, there’s one obvious answer: the coffee machine.

With this in mind, our team is thrilled to announce the release of the Tulip Coffee Kit — everything you need to monitor and predict the status, performance, and maintenance of your most important asset.

This new kit is the first of several new solutions Tulip is developing to help teams extend the scope of their operational excellence initiatives — from the production floor to the break area.

With the Tulip Coffee Kit, you can start tracking key metrics on your office’s coffee machine — from utilization, to downtime, to cycle time. Now, you’ll have all the data you need to know exactly how much coffee your team consumes and how you can optimize the brewing process to ensure a steady flow of caffeine to your frontline. Leverage machine learning and historical data to predict and prevent production-stopping events such as empty pots, empty water reservoirs, filled coffee grind bins, and more.

The machine-agnostic Coffee Kit is capable of working with single-serve coffee makers (including Keurig and Nespresso machines), commercial-grade coffee machines (such as Bunn), espresso machines, and more.

The Tulip Coffee Kit box includes everything you need to get started (Edge IO, a current sensor, and the Coffee Kit app) — as well as a complimentary coffee bag!

Sensors placed on the designated coffee machine send high-frequency current and vibration data to Tulip via the Edge IO. The Edge IO has Node-RED onboard, which allows you to transform data at the edge. From this point on, the coffee machine is equipped to leverage machine learning to detect and identify changes in machine state automatically.

We also provide a work instructions and machine data collection app that you can leverage to train your team on how to use the coffee machine correctly to prevent damage to the machine and wasted coffee.

Tulip is committed to empowering the worker by removing the mental burden and stress associated with using a shared kitchen space. Stay tuned for more exciting releases from our new Tulip Office suite!

Coffee Supply Inventory Management: Notify office management staff when coffee supplies (creamer, sugar, or napkins) are out. Use computer vision to detect empty bins by detecting codes on the bottom. Send alerts via Slack, WhatsApp, email, or SMS.

Sink Clearance Kit: Encourage good shared sink etiquette by leveraging a camera, light strip, and computer vision technology to identify when a dish is placed in the sink. The light kit will alert individuals that this is not the correct behavior. The advanced computer vision technology prevents false positives with depth detection and hand tracking.

Appliance Andon App: Enable individuals to notify the correct parties in real-time when an appliance (microwave, toaster, etc.) needs attention with a dedicated app. Allow them to choose the downtime reason, such as dirty, repair needed, or weird smoke smell. Send alerts via Slack, WhatsApp, email, or SMS. Optionally, you can install a physical Andon light above the appliance.