More equipment is not the safer choice for a Cleburne medical office. Measured weekday traffic sizes a DFW vending program. This illustrative 12-month teardown starts with 84 rostered employees but only 43 average onsite users. The final recommendation is one cashless combo machine, one compact secure cooler, employer-funded coffee, and filtered water under a 90-day review cycle.
This scenario is an anonymized illustrative composite. It does not describe a named company or a Delio client. The numbers show how an installation that looked cautious at launch became visibly oversized once HR tracked who was actually onsite and when they took breaks.
The 84-Person Assumption That Built Too Much
The building sat near Cleburne's Highway 67 corridor. Employees and patients also arrived through the Highway 174 corridor. The location belonged to Cleburne's Johnson County healthcare environment, which includes a Carter BloodCare donor center, but the scenario has no relationship with that organization.
At kickoff, HR supplied a roster of 84 employees across clinical and administrative teams. The forecast assumed 38 paid transactions per weekday. That supported a separate snack machine, a beverage machine, and a refrigerated area with 36 fresh-food positions, alongside existing single-cup coffee and filtered water.
The initial sizing treated the roster as a population that would use the building at roughly the same time. That logic can fit a larger hospital with continuous traffic. It was a poor fit for this multi-tenant medical office, where appointments, clinical coverage, lunch breaks, and administrative schedules rarely lined up. The distinction matters when comparing a medical office with full-line healthcare vending services designed for broader hospital demand.
Across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Delio builds coordinated vending, fresh food, coffee, water, and pantry programs around headcount, schedules, and break room traffic. In this composite, the equipment worked correctly. The demand model did not.
What 12 Months of Cleburne Traffic Actually Showed
During months one through three, HR replaced roster assumptions with weekday observation. The average onsite population was 43 people. Actual paid purchases averaged 22 per weekday, which was 16 below the 38-transaction forecast.
| Measure | Launch assumption | Measured result |
|---|---|---|
| Employee population | 84 rostered employees | 43 average onsite users |
| Paid weekday transactions | 38 forecast | 22 actual |
| Fresh-food capacity | 36 positions | 4.6 fresh items sold daily |
| Initial fresh-food discard | No measured baseline | 21 percent |
The traffic log used 30-minute blocks. It showed two separate morning draw windows rather than one large arrival period. Lunch produced the strongest overlap. Activity then declined through the afternoon, leaving the fresh-food cooler full during the slowest part of the day.
This pattern matched the scheduling issue rather than an equipment issue. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health identifies shift work and long hours as recurring features of healthcare work. For HR, the operating lesson is to measure traffic before sizing, including the clinical schedule and each 30-minute demand window.
The Highway 174 corridor also affected when employees, patients, and service personnel entered the building. HR therefore documented approved service windows instead of assuming unrestricted daytime access. That decision respected Cleburne's Johnson County work patterns, where healthcare sites and Johnson County government create different weekday rhythms than a Fort Worth corporate campus.
Two Fixes Failed, Then HR Reset the Rules
The first adjustment ran during months four through six. The assortment expanded from 18 to 30 better-for-you selections. The theory was that additional variety would convert more of the 43 onsite users, but daily paid transactions remained below 24.
The second adjustment ran during months seven through nine. Service increased from once to twice weekly. More visits improved the opportunity to inspect dates and rotate products, but fresh-food discard never fell below 15 percent.
That result mattered because fresh-food rotation has a hard operating limit. The FDA Food Code requires refrigerated, ready-to-eat time and temperature control for safety food held longer than 24 hours to be date marked. At 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below, it must be sold, served, or discarded within seven days. Additional varieties could not create enough demand before that window closed.
During months ten through twelve, HR stopped asking which products should be added. The renewal discussion shifted to measurable acceptance criteria:
- Baseline: Record active onsite users and paid transactions for 60 days before expanding equipment.
- Review cycle: Examine transactions, fresh-food movement, waste, and stockouts every 90 days.
- Waste: Keep fresh-food discard below 15 percent and reduce positions if the rate remains above that level.
- Stockouts: Record empty slots by product and correct repeat stockouts across two consecutive service cycles.
- Access: Put approved delivery entrances and service windows in writing.
- Changes: Require product decisions to use sales data and employee requests rather than adding permanent capacity immediately.
- Ownership and exit: Assign stocking, cleaning, maintenance, and service calls to the operator, with a written 30-to-60-day equipment-removal window.
This checklist gave HR control without requiring HR to manage the machines. It also separated product experimentation from equipment expansion. A new snack could replace a slow seller without adding another shelf, cooler, or service visit.
The Smaller DFW Vending Setup and Its 90-Day Review
The month-12 recommendation removed the separate snack and beverage machines. One cashless combo machine replaced them. A compact secure cooler retained approximately 18 fresh-food positions, which was enough to test sandwiches, wraps, salads, breakfast items, and protein snacks without carrying the original cooler depth.
Right-sizing did not mean removing modern payment capability. Cantaloupe's 2025 Micropayment Trends Report found that cashless payments accounted for about 70 percent of vending transactions during 2024. The retained machine therefore stayed cashless instead of reverting to cash-only equipment.
Under a managed DFW vending service, remote monitoring should guide stocking before products run low. The operator should own installation, stocking, cleaning, maintenance, and service calls. The existing office coffee and water program should remain employer-funded because those beverages were not included in the 22 paid daily transactions.
The next review would occur after 90 days. Expansion would require a sustained increase in active users, paid transactions, or documented stockouts. Fresh-food positions would shrink again if discard returned above the 15 percent acceptance level.
For an HR director, the conclusion is specific: approve capacity that the building can support now, then preserve a written path to expand. DFW vending services should adapt to measured use rather than forcing a medical office to keep equipment that its clinical schedule cannot support.
If your Cleburne medical office is approaching renewal, ask Delio to review the data before equipment is approved. We can recommend a supportable configuration and set the review terms before installation.
Written by Cindy Petez, Delio Team