Jan/Feb 2004

Tesco has announced that it is deploying 10,000 wireless handheld computers for a range of tasks, starting within stores. We look into the background to this major purchase

One of the more appealing aspects of recent mobile computing developments is the convergence of technologies behind them. In the past, the devices you used in the warehouse or out on the road might have had little in common with those chosen for activities in retail stores. Now similar systems can be introduced in all these areas.

This approach was evidently very much in the minds of Tesco managers when they were drawing up plans for an overhaul of the business processes at 2,000 UK stores. That programme has cost £13.5 million in all, but the company expects to recoup this within two years, thanks mainly to greater staff productivity and increased sales through higher product availability.

As part of the programme, Tesco is deploying 10,000 Intermec 700 Series Color handheld computers. The primary application is within stores, but similar units are also being used in the field for checking store delivery accuracy, using GPRS connectivity to feed back data in real time, and to check accuracy of deliveries against invoices.

 

Part of the rationale behind the choice of equipment was the company's recognition of the need for a technology shift. Philip Robbins-Jones, Tesco's IT strategic development director, explains: "We needed a rugged device that offered RF mobile communication and could accommodate moves from a text-based to a graphical platform, as well as from terminal emulation to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

"We did not look solely at wireless technology," he adds, "but it formed a key part of our research remit."

The 700 handheld integrates up to three wireless communication options in a single device - WLAN (802.11b) radio, a GSM/GPRS wide-area network radio, and a fully integrated power-managed Bluetooth radio - making it suitable for a myriad of tasks.

These options allow the same device to be used to communicate status and information in real time from virtually any location, whether via wireless local-area networks in stores, warehouses and distribution centres or via wide-area networks on mobile operations such as deliveries.

"The most significant finding from our research was that we should concentrate our IT energies initially in stores," Robbins-Jones says. There were numerous areas within stores where Tesco thought the new technology could be used to improve operations. One was price integrity and stock processes at the shelf edge. Another was improving the level of information at the customer services desks, which was originally a paper-based process. A further aspect was enabling managers in stores to do their job where they needed to be - on the shop floor - rather than in the back office.

The customer service function has now been fully automated, Robbins-Jones says, and is almost paperless. "The other major IT investment area that we have gone for is the stock and price routine at the shelf edge." To perform task such as in-store price mark-downs, logging stock transactions planagrams of product layout and shelf design.

Tesco suppliers are also said to be benefiting from the new systems. Power Europe in Daventry, for example, receives and stores frozen foods from hundreds of suppliers, picks it and distributes it to the whole of the Tesco network south of the M6. The company uses a system based on Intermec 2455 truck-mounted computers and (coincidentally) 700 Color handhelds to collect data in cold stores.

Paul Holland, general manager of Power Europe says: "We are averaging 950,000 cases picked per week. Obviously, Tesco wants the stock on the shelf as soon as possible. We have a paperless picking system, so it is far quicker and much more reliable, and it tells the operator where to go all the time. It is also very easy to use from a management perspective, and the trackability and traceability of what each person does is fantastic. We can just log into the system and see what people are doing at any time throughout the day.

"The Intermec kit is very robust, as it is working at temperatures of minus 23 to 24 degrees Celsius in the marshalling area."