How long does it take to roll out a kiosk system?

How long does it take to roll out a kiosk system?
Tags: Manufacturers
February 7, 2012

A kiosk project's timeline ranges anywhere from a few months to several years depending on the scope of the project – how large the project is, how complicated the application is and whether the kiosk system is independent or needs to be integrated into an existing system.

It takes much more time to roll out thousands of custom kiosks with complicated applications than it does to deploy a few off-the-shelf kiosks that simply display standard information.

Based on our experience, a typical mid- to large-scale kiosk implementation takes 12 to 24 months.

Kiosk project phases

There are three especially important phases for kiosk projects – the scoping and planning phase and development and implementation for both the pilot and production kiosks.

Scoping & planning

The first phase involves scoping, planning and vendor selection. As we discussed in our first post Overcoming the challenges of kiosk deployments: Part 1, the internal decision making process in this phase could take some time because a kiosk project usually involves many stakeholders such as executives, marketing managers, the customer relationship, office management, etc.

Development & implementation for pilot kiosks

Organizations usually develop and implement pilot kiosks for proof of concept in the first 6 to 12 months. This process greatly reduces the risk of the investment because it allows organizations to validate the concept, hardware and software and make adjustments to them before they invest significantly for the large-scale rollout.

Development & implementation for production kiosks

After the development of the pilot kiosks is completed or close to completion, it is the time to start to build the production kiosks for large-scale rollout.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, Is your kiosk following regulations?, complying with regulations requires extra time management therefore starting the development of the production kiosks early on helps to save time. Don't wait for the pilot program to be completed before starting this process. Try to incorporate as much feedback as possible from the pilot kiosks to improve the production system.

By planning for each phase of your kiosk project, you are helping to ensure the delivery of the best possible product and an overall successful program.