A few years ago, this thought came up after a few visits to Walmart in US.
One of the important things which Walmart should care about is reducing the time taken for the customers to finish the checkout of purchases made. Ideally there is a barcode tag in every item and the employee has to show this to the reader one by one, while the items are kept on a rolling table.
My idea was, why not have a screening machine kind of setup for this activity. Say, the items are kept on a line on the rolling table. Every item passes through this screening machine. As it moves along, the barcode is read and the item is billed. So, the time lag involved in the employee picking up the item and showing the barcode to the reader is reduced.
One of my friend suggested that i am crazy... but i still consider this to be a very innovative idea. Infact, this might simplify the self checkout counters as well.
I am reminded of this idea after reading about the Patent filed by Bill Gates & co for stopping Hurricanes.
There is another patent for a temperature stabilized self containers which sounds similar to thermo flasks. Also imagine how it would be if there are ziplock kind of covers/ wrappers which can be used to cover a specific item and set a specific temperature... Maybe this is possible due to nano technology. When it does become a reality, i wonder what'll happen to refrigerator, microwave ovens and many other stuff. Would it be like how ice machines gave way to refrigerator?
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9 comments:
I disagree with the checkout idea.
It will largely depend on the speed of the belt on which the items are placed and the orientation of the bar code.
In fact, Giant Eagle has self checkout lanes for those who don't want to wait.
Most stores like Walmart use plastic covers which impedes easy flow.
Stores like Costco, Sam's Club and Aldi's do not give free covers, so all items go directly to another shopping cart.
The best idea of all is to simply pack all you want, develop cheap RFID or penentrative bar code such that simply showing a membership card and walking out the sensor-laden door will charge your account. Simple. Some stores will beep at the door if you take some tagged item out without biling; some modification of that is a good idea for my idea.
charlie|thotti,
good to see you here... :)
I didn't explain the idea completely.
Yes, it'll depend on the speed of the belt. But it'll not depend on the way item is placed or the orientation of the bar code. The device should be able to capture the whole outer circumference of the item, identify the barcode and read it.
Infact, one of the reasons for human intervention is to position the barcode to the reader. And this causes the delay.
So, my whole idea is to remove this delay.
Also, the speed of the belt depends on the time taken for the device to do one reading.
I even thought of this plastic covers. The device can be enhanced to support automatic sliding of the items to the plastic covers. And this can take into account the type of the item(detergents vs fruits) and the type of the container (hardboarded ones vs soft ones)
I remember listening to a podcast quite a few years ago as why RFID never really clicked. The most important reason was the per piece cost involved in deploying the same. It's not feasible for Walmart to tag everything even if RFID costs a few cents.
btw, yesterday i was further thinking about this idea.
And had quite an extension. :)
Imagine this.
1. User has a barcode reader kind of device with him.
2. He/she selects a particular item in an aisle.
3. He/she doesn't pick up the item and doesn't have trolleys to maneuver the same around while continuing with other shopping. All He/she does is, goes on selecting the items which he/she needs.
4. Once the user is done with all selections, he/she walks to the counter.
5. There, the items are billed and present in a ready to carry packages and a bill as well.
6. User pays it,takes the items and leaves the shop.
How the items are present in step 5 might be some kind of automated mechanism in which the items gets moved from the aisles to the billing counter location automatically :) (this part might sound a bit crazy, but i definitely think it can be worked out. just need to think a bit)
Now there are few concern points.
If the user is a bit fickle minded person like me for ex,
1. he/she can actually be picking and replacing a few items many a times before coming to the decision.
2. he/she likes to fill the cart and likes to roll it over all the aisles.
then this method might not work.
Still, these users will have an option not to go for the barcodereader like instrument.
What do you think?
How about this. The trolley is fitted with a barcode reader. You decide about the item to be put in.. just make it go through the scanner. When everything decided, go to the teller. just pay.?
PostMan,
Yes, thats possible. Probably, the trolley should allow putting in the items only after scanning.
But the thing is, here the buck is passed to the customer :)
na na. Not like 'the trolley should allow putting in the items only after scanning', that would be impossible frankly. The customer would decide which ones need to go in to trolley and thus would pass those items through bar code reader.
Regarding leaving on customers, the guy at the counter would go through the items to check. And any store would have measures regarding shop lifting regardless of how the payment measures are adopted.
ok. So the guy at the counter cross verifies the same.
But that might lead to a delay. Because the order in which it is billed will be different from the way items are present in a trolley...so, he/she at the counter will take some time to check the items.
The guy at the counter would just have to glance at items and that they are reflected in Bill. 'I' think it can reduce his time spent by almost 50%.
Yes, but identifying the item thru the glance will take more time.
Infact, I have observed this task in bulk supermarkets here, where after billing there is a dedicated person to just verify whether all items are billed. When the items are more, it does take quite a time.
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