The Green Sheet Online Edition
June 6, 2008 • 08:06:01
Fight shrinkage with small footprint
In typical retail environments, bar codes attached to merchandise need to be scanned at checkout. But merchants also secure merchandise with anti-theft tags designed to prevent thieves from stealing the items. At the POS, these tags need to be removed or deactivated, so purchases can be taken outside without tripping store alarms.
Scanning the bar code and deactivating the security tag can be cumbersome for retailers, slowing down checkout. Plus, multiple devices take up valuable POS counter space.
But Dayton, Ohio's NCR Corp. offers the NCR RealScan 74 OFX that scans and deactivates and comes in a small, compact design.
In collaboration with Tyco International-owned ADT Security Services Inc., NCR was able to integrate ADT's Sensormatic tag deactivator technology into the RealScan 74, so that anti-theft tags on merchandise can be deactivated at the same time the bar codes are scanned, thereby speeding up checkout times.
According to John Wilson, NCR Product Manager for Scanners, in the past the NCR-ADT team "had to leave room inside an existing scanner design to add the Sensormatic technology, which made them significantly deeper under the check stand, which presented some retailer challenges in regards to leaving enough room underneath the scanner at the check stand."
For the past 30 years, Wilson said, the standard U.S. bar code scanners have measured 20 inches long. The RealScan 74 reduces that footprint to only 14 inches front to back.
Squeezing the Sensormatic technology into the smaller footprint was the biggest challenge.
"Deactivation [technology] has been around for some time," said Bob Clucas, Global Marcomm Manager, ADT. "The integration of that deactivation coil is relatively new.
"We've been working with NCR for about four years. So what we had done in the past is to co-locate the two items, one being the scanner, one being the deactivation tool at the point of sale.
"What we've been able to do over the past few years is to integrate the two into one space."
The RealScan 74 is a fixed position, bi-optic scanner. Wilson said bi-optic refers to the two windows such scanners possess - one on the horizontal plane, the other on the vertical plane.
Clucas said the deactivation coils are simply two coils of wire; one wire emits a deactivation pulse from the vertical window, the other wire from the horizontal window.
The RealScan 74 is "easily upgradeable onsite," Clucas said. "That's really key."
NCR Corp.
866-431-7879
www.ncr.com
ADT Security Services Inc.
561-912-6750
www.sensormatic.com
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