Archive For: 2009

Studying how people work and how we can improve efficiency reminds me of the old time and motion studies that were so popular in the mid 1950′s. These white coated figures would roam factories with their stop watches. The purpose of a time and motion study would be used to reduce the number of motions in performing a task in order to increase productivity and even reduce staff numbers. No wonder they were viewed as the enemy by the employees. It conjures up the image of Peter Sellers as the shop steward in the British comedy called I’m Alright Jack.

Thankfully things have moved on since then. However, I remember that during the recession of the 1990′s a new business buzzword appeared on the landscape of best practice – ‘downsizing’. I think this meant different things to different businesses, but ultimately it was about reducing a company’s head count. To add a positive spin on it came ‘rightsizing’ which is in fact downsizing, but no doubt made the companies feel better.

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Retail Self-Checkouts To Quadruple By 2014

” A UK-based research group predicts there will be 430,000 retail self-checkout terminals (self-checkouts) in use globally by 2014, four times the current number, and North America will account for more than half of the units.

The forecast is based on a study by Retail Banking Research, which said there were 92,600 self-service checkouts in use globally by the end of 2008, about 25 percent more than were in service at the end of 2007. The study focused only on self-checkouts used in supermarkets and other retail establishments.” Read the full story.

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Maxatec has signed an agreement with Group Sense Mobile-Tech Limited “GSML”, Hong Kong, to distribute its range of mobile computing devices in the United Kingdom.

Group Sense Group, ISO-9001 and ISO-14000 certified company, was founded in 1988 and is now one of the leading manufacturers of electronic dictionaries and other rugged handheld information devices. In 1996, the Group launched the world’s first PDA device operating on a Chinese language platform. Since 2000, the Group has been manufacturing the Xplore series of PDAs, featuring magnesium cases, bilingual user interface and ‘open-platform’ operating system to enable companies to develop customised applications.

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Picture this scenario, a small business that makes things, takes orders, packs them and ships them; usually starts out with quite basic processes and for a while, they fulfil the purpose albeit just adequately.

The owner manager feels in control as he oversees the orders, adjusts his stock position and then coordinates delivery to the customer; he instructs his dedicated staff every step of the way. But what happens as his company grows? Enter technology.

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