Mobile Computing/Printing Solution Earns Integrator 150-Store Project

Anyone who has ever worked with a retail client knows one of these companies' biggest concerns is keeping employees accessible to customers. Retailers don't want their sales staff spending excessive time in a back room checking on the availability of a product for a customer or preparing price tags. Unfortunately, that's exactly what was happening at one customer of Vytek Solutions, Inc. (Parsippany, NJ).

Provide Mobile Computing For The Point Of Activity
The customer, a nationwide retailer of educational toys, books, games, and multimedia products, had worked with Vytek in the past. Now, the company wanted to improve its inventory management processes, while increasing the ability of sales associates to service customers from the sales floor. "The client had examined its customer service and labor statistics and realized they needed to immediately address these areas," explained Matthew Lombardi, president of Vytek.

The retailer uses JDA (Scottsdale, AZ) back end inventory software with a desktop interface. Although the system provides accurate inventory information, sales associates had to leave customers' sides to access it in the back office. Also, there was a large labor cost associated with the retailer's system of creating item/shelf labels in the back office. "What they needed was a mobile computing solution that would extend their back end inventory system to the floor and enable salespeople to complete their work at the point of activity," Lombardi said.

Deployment To First Of 150 Stores Within Nine Months Of Proposal
To provide the real-time inventory accessibility the company wanted, Vytek proposed installing wireless LANs (WLANs) at the customer's 150 stores. Connected to these WLANs would be handheld computers running inventory applications used to access item and store information. In addition, portable printers would be connected to the handhelds to allow store employees to print item and shelf labels while still working on the sales floor.

"The client contacts we worked with had been exposed to RF [radio frequency] technology [at other companies] and understood the advantages it had to offer," Lombardi stated. "The decision was made to move ahead with the project, and we quickly began the steps to customize and fully integrate the solution, deploying to the first stores within nine months of the proposal."

Portable Printers/Handhelds Keep Sales Staff Accessible
After tailoring the solution to meet the retailer's needs, the next part of the project involved integrating the company's separate POS (point of sale) and inventory servers. Additionally, Vytek had to design an installation software package that would simplify the process of configuring the server to communicate with the WLAN's (Symbol Technologies [Holtsville, NY] Spectrum 24) access points.

Once that phase was complete, each store was equipped with at least 2 (395 were sold in total for the project) Symbol SPT 1700 series wireless handheld computers. All of the stores also received at least 1 (250 were sold for the project) Zebra Technologies (Vernon Hills, IL) Encore 2 portable printer complete with custom labels. The Zebra printers, which weigh less than 1.5 pounds, hook onto a salesperson's belt and connect to the handheld via a serial cable. The printers are capable of printing on 2-inch-wide labels or tag stock.

Vytek conducted a three-day "train-the-trainer" educational session at the customer's headquarters for all of the personnel that would be responsible for deploying these new mobile computing/printing systems. In addition, Vytek provided network monitoring and management, as well as service and support contracts for the hardware portions of the solution. "This solution extended back end systems onto handheld devices and included complete integration with back end inventory systems at the corporate level, as well as integration into the POS system in the store," Lombardi said.

Save Your Clients From Losing Customers
Before this new system, the retailer feared it was losing sales revenue when customers who could not locate items would leave and go to a competitor's store. Now, using the handhelds, sales associates can look up inventory levels throughout the chain in real time and print customers a tag listing the item and the store that has the item in stock.

For item and shelf labeling using a handheld device, sales associates can scan or manually enter an item number, select the appropriate number of labels, and print. This functionality keeps sales associates on the sales floor for longer periods of time, thereby improving customer service levels. In fact, the retailer acknowledged that its financial and operational objectives have been met with Vytek's solution. In the future, the retailer may decide to deploy additional mobile computing and printing solutions such as line busting.