I think this is a great thought/question. I might be off on a tangent here, but I think my thoughts apply to the question and maybe take it a step further. I'm not an information technology (IT) person, but I've worked from the business/user side on many IT projects. The number one problem I've seen in IT development projects is capturing the needs of the users and communicating it efficiently to the IT pros. If this step is done well the IT pros will eventually understand the user/business needs and start asking questions that the users had never thought of.
I like the idea of knowledgeable forum members providing input on the needs of wash operators. I agree that it would be a win win situation, but I'd take it a step further. By that I mean that wash operators are at the mercy of manufacturers in a lot of respects. In many respects operators end up picking the solution that meets most of their needs, but not all. Maybe if operators could define and help develop some IT tools that could be used more universally across all washes it would push the manufacturers to be less proprietary and more accommodating/consistent. Not sure, but maybe.
My wash is outdated in several respects, so I can't do via PC and I can't do anything remotely. The extent of automation with my wash is a nightly fax report of my automatic transactions and pages/texts when my automatic experiences a fault. I realize that I have the ability to pay for a service so I can manage my ACW remotely, but that only gets me one piece of the puzzle and it is too expensive. I'd like to be able to monitor and manage my automatic, my acw, my ss bays (timers, mechs, validators, card readers) and my vacs remotely. If we could help someone to create an IT tool to manage the most common aspects of operations via computer/remotely it may drive more consistency across products/equipment.
As an example, I own a ice machine at my wash. I can do a lot via computer and remotely. Monitor sales, review alerts, change prices, change messages to the customer, reset the machine, reset the
coin mech and bill validator, vend remotely. Car wash equipment isn't much different from the ice machine in that they are both unattended sales. My understanding is that there is a guy in Kentucky who has written/built an application that is even better than the one that I use and it costs $70/month. That would be worth it to me for a solution for the entire wash, but not for just my acw.
So, I'm dreaming of and planning for the day that I can manage things via computer/remotely. I know this is pie in the sky, but so were the telephone and the light bulb.
