Web handhelds improve Tesco stock control

Supermarket sees 40 per cent efficiency increases

Tesco has improved its in-store stock control by 40 per cent after providing staff with web-enabled handheld computers.

The retailer purchased 10,000 wireless Intermec 700 Series devices supporting .Net web services, and is using radio frequency networks in all its stores to communicate with central systems via a wide area network.

The systems are the latest stage in a strategy to improve business processes with internet technologies.

Tesco is using the handhelds to help make sure shelves are not empty and ensure that pricing is accurate and competitive.

'In spring 2001, we started thinking about the possible opportunities that web-enabling might introduce to Tesco,' said Philip Robbins-Jones, IT strategic development director.

'We engaged IBM to carry out some consultancy which focused on what the major business processes in Tesco were and where we might have opportunities from the deployment of web-enabling,' he said.

Robbins-Jones says three areas were identified: stock and price processes at the shelf, improving customer service information in-store, and allowing managers access to information on the shop floor.

Tesco was not happy with all the features of the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system that came with the Intermec devices, so it wrote its own application using .Net and BizTalk to allow access to all its systems.

'The .Net application is dipping in and out of the IBM mainframe and DB2 database. It is dipping in and out of six or seven applications that are spread across at least three different operating systems and they are in different places,' said Robbins-Jones.

'We wanted to drive productivity,' he said. 'The benefit comes not in the reduction of labour costs but in increasing the effectiveness of what the staff are doing, so the output is increased availability of stock for our customers.'