Waitrose refreshes EPoS

Waitrose has renewed it's entire store EPoS technology with hardware from Wincor Nixdorf in order to innovate and transform the retail experience.

Sally Hodgson, manager of EPoS development at Waitrose, commented, "We wanted a long-term relationship with a single supplier that could actively help Waitrose develop it's business systems. It became clear that Wincor Nixdorf offered a very good commercial fit with Waitrose, and provided the key service and support elements and nationwide coverage"

The refresh was completed in December 2007. Waitrose selected Wincor Nixdorf as the single-source supplier, deploying Wincor Nixdorf Beetle till and Cashbases cash drawer unit's, chip and pin readers from Trintech (now Verifone), printers from Epson, scanner/scales unit's from Datalogic, and EPoS software from PCMS.

Hodgson concludes, "Wincor Nixdorf concentrates on efficiency improvement, availability and performance and manages the hardware components of our solution. With Wincor Nixdorf helping to select and deploy the best technology, introducing new solutions becomes a business as usual process, greatly enhancing business flexibility for Waitrose. We have created a partnership that is primed to deliver the kind of benefit's that our customers want, and that should help Waitrose continue to thrive in a very competitive retail market."

www.wincor-nixdorf.com

Wyevale Garden Centres takes control of it's conference calls

Ring2 Conferencing, have announced that Wyevale Garden Centres, the UK's largest chain of garden centres with over 100 locations nationwide, has selected Ring2 as it's audio-conferencing provider to manage conference calls for it's weekly management calls.

"Ring2's web-based monitoring and control interface saves time and is making our conference calls much more efficient," said Peter Brigden, retail director, Wyevale. "The service also fit's perfectly with our 'Going Green' campaign, encouraging our employees to conference call rather than travel to a meeting. An additional benefit is we're now saving 25% from our previous supplier."

Ring2 Conferencing's online account area is designed to simplify the process of arranging, scheduling and controlling conference calls company-wide.

Users are able to send Outlook e-mail and calendar invitations already populated with the dial-in details of a conference; create additional conferences with new access codes on demand; manage call scheduling on behalf of other users; monitor and control participants on a live call to overcome visibility, security and control challenges familiar to frequent conference callers; assign billing codes to call for client disbursement or accounting purposes and record the call for retrieval as an MP3 file.

www.ring2.com

Greggs the bakers purchases CODA software

Finance software specialist, CODA Group have announced that Greggs plc, the baker and retailer has signed a contract for it's Financials software for more than 100 finance users accounting for more than 1,350 shops in a deal worth around £600K in the first year.

Following a thorough systems evaluation, Greggs decided that the functionality of the CODA software would best meet it's desire to move to a more centralised shared service accounting model. Currently, Greggs operates 10 regional installations of it's current finance system, built and maintained in-house, and wanted to centralise these for longer term efficiencies whilst being able to produce both divisional and group accounts more efficiently.

"The CODA team worked closely with us to show how the core product functionality would meet the needs of our business," said Lee Massingham, finance systems manager at Greggs. "We are therefore confident that the chosen applications will support both our divisional structure and our requirement to provide increasingly timely, accurate information at a shop level. We were reassured by the professionalism of the CODA team and their suggested approach to the overall project. The product will interface to our existing manufacturing and EPOS applications, helping us to further automate our accounting processes."

Greggs is also keen to move from a quarterly reporting cycle to reporting monthly and wanted to be able to analyse more detailed information from each shop relating to monthly profitability. Integration with Greggs' other business systems, means that the company will have quicker access to more accurate information about the business than ever before.

In addition to CODA's Financials software, Greggs has purchased CODA's XL reporting add-on and software for asset accounting, billing, invoice matching and business intelligence. CODA's process control software will help to automate many of the processes involved in sharing information across the business making them more controlled and efficient including activities related to expense accounting and spend management.

www.coda.com

Ocado trials prototype electric delivery van

Ocado, the independent online supermarket is to begin trials of an electric delivery van claimed to be the first of it's kind anywhere in the world.

Working closely with the team of inventors behind this new transport technology, Ocado is continuing it's commitment to being a greener alternative to supermarket shopping and hopes that the new van will become a regular feature on British roads over the coming years.

Currently, Ocado uses Mercedes Sprinter vans which were designed specifically for use by the company. Each Sprinter enables Ocado to make the greenest achievable home deliveries; every day, around 40 Ocado customers' cars remain parked at home instead of driving to the supermarket.

The 5.5 tonne van, created by Isuzu and Zeroed, is powered by an electronically controlled electric drive train and a simple two pedal operation. Energy is supplied from two strings of lithium ion phosphate batteries mounted in cassettes under the body. These are charged overnight for around six hours and provide over 100 miles of range and a top speed of 55 mph.

An electric fridge cools the van's body then uses the waste heat removed to then heat the vehicle cab via a heat exchanger. Using a highly efficient scroll compressor running at constant speed, unlike in a diesel engine, this uses very little energy from the batteries.

Regenerative braking also helps to preserve battery power and this is linked this to an antilock braking system for added safety.

www.ocado.com