The future of self-service - self-learning scales increase sales and customer satisfaction

Carrefour and Bizerba install scales with automatic article recognition in hypermarkets

Balingen, 10th August 2010 - As a means of making the planned transition to the new era of self-service in the fruit and vegetable aisles attractive for both young and old, Carrefour and the technology manufacturer Bizerba are currently installing around 1,400 scales with optical article recognition and an intuitively operable touchscreen in 200 hypermarkets. The aims are clear: weighing and labelling procedures should be quicker, sales and customer satisfaction should be higher and staff should be able to be used more flexibly for a larger range of tasks.

Up until now weighing stations were set up in the fruit and vegetable aisles of the Carrefour hypermarkets. There, customers had to place their goods on a scale and a member of staff took care of the rest: they retrieved the product number, printed the respective ticket and stuck it to the bag. The scales in series CE II 8615, however, have a camera for automatic article recognition. They automatically identify fruit and vegetables using colour, shape, size and surface.

After analysing these specifications, the customer is shown four items to select on the display. They chose the correct one by pressing it with their finger, which then gives the scale direct feedback on its recognition. "The more the scale recognises and is confirmed, the more intelligent it becomes", says Mr Groubon at Bizerba France. "After some time, the database becomes so mature that amazing recognition performances of over 98 percent are possible. This even works if the articles are already in the carrier bag."

"With the new CE II scales we are realising a change in the aisles, moving away from service towards self-service," says Mr. Champagne at Carrefour. There are several reasons for this: "On the one hand, up until now staff had to always be present at the weighing station even with extremely low volumes of customers. The new self-service allows us to use staff flexibly and more profitably for other tasks in the market. On the other hand, the weighing and labelling procedures become quicker through the use of six to ten scales per aisle and thus significantly increase sales. Not least, we want to show customers that Carrefour is an innovative business using both convenient functionality and new design. So far, all respondents have been satisfied and even the older generations have been finding it really easy to get to grips with the intuitive user experience of the touchscreen displays."

Furthermore, the hypermarket can centrally manage all article information and prices and update the scale displays via the internet. Should any difficulties arise on site, Bizerba service technicians can access the scales via remote control, analyse the problem and remove it immediately. This effectively reduces long downtimes and expensive on-site jobs.

The French business Carrefour is the largest retail business in Europe and is the second largest in the world after Walmart. The complete roll-out will last until the end of July 2010 and includes the installation of 1,400 camera scales in 220 hypermarkets.

About Bizerba

Bizerba is a leading, worldwide-operating solutions provider offering professional system solutions in scale, label, information and food service technologies, in the retail, food industry, producing and logistic segments. Sector-specific hardware and software, high-performance network-compatible management systems as well as a wide selection of labels, consumables and business services ensure transparent control of integrated business processes and high-level availability of Bizerba-specific performance features.

Worldwide, Bizerba is present in over 120 countries – with 41 shareholdings in 23 countries, as well as 54 country distributors. In 2009, company turnover decreased by approx. The company’s headquarters, with a staff of 3,000, is located in Balingen, Germany. Further manufacturing facilities are located in Meßkirch, Bochum, Vienna (Austria), Pfäffikon (Switzerland), Milan (Italy), Shanghai (China), Forest Hill (USA) and San Luis Potosi (Mexico).

For enquiries, please contact:

Bizerba GmbH & Co. KG
Claudia Gross
Director Global Marketing and Communication
Wilhelm-Kraut-Straße 65
D-72336 Balingen
Germany
Telephone +49 7433 12-33 00
Fax +49 7433 12-5 33 00
E-mail: claudia.gross@bizerba.com

nic.pr
network integrated communication
Patrick Schroeder
Coburger Straße 3
53113 Bonn
Telefon +49 228 620 43 84
Telefax +49 228 620 44 75
E-Mail: patrick.schroeder@nic-pr.de

This release was published on openPR.