September 2006
James Hall & Co, the Northern distribution centre for convenience group SPAR, is rolling out DigiPoS Retail Systems' Retail Blade Server across its entire scanning estate of 300 stores.

The hardware, with its dual PoS and server functionality through RAID mirroring and SATA dual drives is being installed in all lanes and in all back offices. The deployment commenced in January 2005 and, to date, approximately 300 units have been installed across 86 stores.

James Hall was looking for flexibility, reliability and uniformity when choosing its new retail system. Following rigorous testing DigiPoS' Retail Blade Server scored highest on three points: the flexibility of the system allows the company to develop their IT over a longer period time and at minimal cost; the modular Blade technology it offered increased reliability through reduced downtime and maintenance costs; and the dual functionality of the system as a server and PoS has created uniformity across its front and back offices.

Stuart Lockhart, James Hall scanning manager said: "To really test the capabilities of the system our first set of implementations were in our most testing environment - a city centre store operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The reliability that the system demonstrated in this store has exceeded expectations."

An additional benefit James Hall discovered was the back-office space saving ability of the Retail Blade Server. Lockhart added: "We are constantly looking to increase storage space, which means office space is at a minimum. Therefore the physical size of the Retail Blade Server was a massive benefit of the system."

Supporting the installation and providing a seven-day call out service for James Halls' SPAR stores is service provider, Vista Retail Support, part of the same group as DigiPoS. The UK IT services company has worked closely with James Hall to create a 'call reduction strategy', where PoS analysis is used to target the top four most commonly recurring problems. This pro-active strategy has also led to reductions in maintenance charges for James Hall.

The implementation of the Retail Blade Server across the complete James Hall SPAR estate is due for completion in 2010.

Contact
DigiPoS Retail Systems
www.digipos-systems.co.uk