Wal Mart Integrated Inventory Management Systems

Lately Conner and Martin have been working with “radio frequency identification” (RFID) technology. They have developed a detailed system designed to track inventory items using RFID tags embedded invisibly in products. This technology has numerous inventory

By implementing a curbside pick-up and delivery program, Publix will be able to create an advantage over its competitors by offering its customers affordable merchandise in a convenient and efficient way. Publix will benefit by attracting new customers and retaining existing customers who for physical, time sensitive, or other reasons cannot make it into the store to do their grocery shopping. Although Publix could potentially miss out on revenue made by customers making impulse purchases based on eye grabbing displays in the aisles or at the register , they will surely make extra based on the ease of clicking and selecting items. By clicking items to add them to their “shopping cart” customers may lose themselves in the ease of amassing groceries and end up spending more than they would have had they been inside the store.

This project ‘Grocery store’ will focus on small aspect of the grocery enterprise simulating a customer buying items by selecting them on a form as if taking them from the shelves. They can then see their subtotal and tax and finish the transaction. A store employee level user can view certain reports on inventory, customer activity and personal information using data stored in the tables. Employees will also have to log in to use the system. Their information will appear in reports that managers run.

According to Andre (2013), “grocers have to think outside of the box and offer more to their clients in order to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty” (p.1). Since customers’ shopping style has been changed, groceries should change their marketing strategy from a long-term perspective. As we discussed earlier, Whole Foods Market has developed its application that allows customers to buy products through smartphones. Customers can make orders through smartphones and pick up later, which saves plenty of time, especially for some working parents. This cool technology is not only attractive but also helpful fostering customer loyalty. Whole Foods Market’s website promotes its smartphone APP constantly and describes the benefits of downloading the application, which are also ways of offering the convenient shopping experience for

By analyzing Amazon’s market situation, there are several strengths that encourage the opening of a drive-thru grocery store in Toronto. The built in feature of a drive-thru will offer a less time-consuming way for customers to shop for groceries, providing more convenience. In a contemporary society, especially in Toronto, people have a very busy lifestyle due to today’s stressful work lifestyle. From research completed in 1999, more than 25 million Americans, almost 20.5 percent of the total workforce, reported that they worked at least 49 hours a week, and 11 million of those said they worked more than 59 hours a week (Schabner, 2015). Today, this condition is not improved. Therefore, Amazon’s drive-thru grocery store is providing a high-efficiency alternative, where customers can order groceries online and select a time to pick them up that fits within their schedule. Also, customers do not need cars necessarily, they could arrive by bicycle or by foot, which means the service meets customers’ needs better, since almost everyone could access this service. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional grocery shopping, building the drive-thru station is an important step of automation progress (Heath, 2015). It is a way to improve the efficiency. Furthermore, Amazon is an electronic commerce and cloud computing company, and it is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States (Monument Policy Group, 2015). Before going into the

From personal experience and as reflected in our market research most consumers prefer to purchase perishable consumables at a local store and we will need to entice our targeted consumers to come to the store fronts or to order online once they have tasted and enjoyed our products. Much like Starbucks whose coffee shops sell a lot of items not related to coffee we must consider adding the intrinsic items that our customers would find interesting such as free wireless internet access from each storefront. This feature would also help us promote our website and expand our customer base. We must continue to collect feedback from all of our market areas and customer to make sure we keep our product fresh and exciting.

The growth of online retailing is quite slow in United States of America as compare to European countries. There are very limited online services have been adopted by retailers in United States of America. The big retailers of country have given just one option to their customer is that just buy products online but pick yourself from your selected store. Such services are available on sites of Wal-Mart, Delhaize and Meijer etc. The main reason of having slow growth of online retailers is the delivery cost of groceries items and limited areas of delivery. There are two famous online retailers, Peapod and Fresh Direct. They have expanded their delivery areas. The management of Peapod is planning to provide their services of smartphones and social media sites by developing unique app. The business of online retailing can be expanded if they target young population of country who are more familiar with technology on daily basis as compare to their elders. There are five areas where Convenient Grocery Stores can bring change in online retail business.

Provides for distributive processing and access. Allows for larger retailers to access store information directly and in real-time without the need of costly network and custom interfaces.

The company found a technology solution to help its distribution operations keep pace with the company’s growth – QuikTrac. With QuikTrac MMAS will be able to cut the time it takes to complete its physical inventory process in half and significantly improve inventory accuracy and warehouse efficiency using a wireless data collection solution that communicates in real time with its MAPICS enterprise resource planning system. Using label printers, MMAS has deployed bar coded location labels throughout its warehouse. Workers scan the location labels with the mobile computers, and key enter quantities during inventory moves. Warehouse employees will also use the devices for cycle counting, and annual physical inventories.

The general goal of this project is to evaluate the feasibility of and outline design requirements for replacing the current Universal Product Barcode (UPC) system with a next generation Electronic Product Code (EPC) system for a small chain of grocery stores. The EPC system uses new industry standards and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to track inventory and gather information by embedding chips into merchandise. We will be addressing the business objectives, overview of current process (UPC), project constraints, functional requirements, new business process model, design requirements, and cost/benefit analysis. This project which is the implementation of the EPC/RFID (Electronic Product Code / Radio Frequency Identification) technology will create a leaner and more efficient process for managing our inventory, as well as, allow us to become an early adaptor of a new process that we believe will provide a competitive advantage in the very near future. The challenge for all stakeholders in this project will be to migrate from the current industry standard UPC system to the next generation EPC system.

The article, “Amazon Go solves worst part of all grocery store problems,” discusses a new vision for grocery stores, Amazon Go. This is a smart store that is primarily powered by artificial intelligence and computer vision. With this grocery store, you do not have to wait in a check out line. Instead, once you walk into the store, the items you pick up are already charged onto your Amazon account. For me, I can see the need for Amazon Go. There are many people who hate the tedious lines in the supermarket, including myself. I remember when buying food with my parents, shopping can take up to three or four hours, and this is not because we purchase too many items. No, rather, it is because of the long checkout lines that squander our valuable

Shopping carts have come a long way since bags, baskets, and early cart designs. The current design maximizes storage with a big basket, a rack, and a child seat, but is missing technology to make shopping easier. Smartphones are so commonly used in this day and age and SmartCart, our product, utilizes current technology like smartphones. With the SmartCart app, customers are able to make lists, compare prices, and prepare their shopping trip. When they arrive at the store, they can sync their pre-made trip from their phones to a screen on the shopping cart. This makes shopping quicker and more efficient, for you can see any information you may need on items right on your cart. The SmartCart perfectly combines current technology with our breakthrough technology that is not present in grocery stores today. With any new product and technology, there are things that could go wrong. However SmartCart creates an overall better shopping experience and has a big upside.

Electromagnetic Automatic Checkout System (EMACOS) is a self-checkout system for providing collective information systems with the identity of each physical item carrying Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in the supply chain in an automated and timely manner. The real time availability of item identity allows the items to be scanned and checked out for a faster, more accurately and an automatized service, leading to increase timeliness. In the context of supply chain operations, universal introduction of such system shows a major probability to overhaul and enhance self-checkout systems, process management and stock management. It is possible that EMACOS may re-engineer the whole supply chain in the future, by eliminating a number of the constraints (such as Barcode) that restrict todays supply chain system. This essay analyses the current checkout systems in supply chains and introduces the main elements of the EMACOS system using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. This system claims to benefit Pak’nSave, one of the biggest discount food warehouse chains in New Zealand.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been a vital part of the Wal-Mart Corporation's growth. At the beginning of the 1990s, Wal-Mart trailed K-Mart which at that time could negotiate lower wholesale prices due to its huge size. Part of Sam Walton's strategy for catching up was to set up a point-of-sale system. Such a system is a computerized network that identifies each item that is sold, locates the price in a computerized database. After this, the system creates an accurate customer sales receipt and stores item-by-item sales information for use in analysis of sales and reordering inventory. The strategic use of this helps Wal-Mart avoid overstocking issues by learning what merchandise items are slow sellers. This has made Wal-Mart's inventory and distribution system a world leader. For example, in 5 year period, Wal-Mart invested somewhere above $600 million IT "Wal-mart: attaining competitive," 1999) .

52. Study of impact of revolutionary technologies on inventory management: RFID, Inventory and Supply Chain Management