In a recent earnings call, Sir Terry Leahy credited the thermal imaging cameras as being a key factor in the company's half-year pre-tax profits rising ten per cent to GBP1.092 billion. Leahy commented, "We have heat seeking cameras that sense the number of customers entering a store and predict the checkouts that need to be open in an hour. We can monitor and manage the service customers get much more precisely - by customer, by store and by the minute. Thanks to this, a quarter of a million more customers every week don't have to queue."

The IRISYS SMARTLANE solution uses ceiling mounted infra-red sensors above the checkout lanes to detect the number and behaviour of customer groups at the checkouts. The intelligent sensors automatically calculate the average queue length, average wait time and overall store performance against Tesco's One in Front* (OIF) customer service commitment. Displaying real-time queuing data on the shop floor enables the retailer's management team to deploy their multi-skilled staff to react quickly to potential queuing issues.

Attila Winstanley, Productivity Director at Tesco adds, "Ensuring we offer the best service at the checkouts is one of our core disciplines, and it is also one of our biggest challenges. Historically we have manually captured data on queue lengths at the checkout, but accuracy levels were varied. SMARTLANE accurately captures our OIF performance in real time, allowing Front End Checkout Managers to deliver better levels of service, whilst at the same time optimising the deployment of checkout staff."

Chris Precious Sales Director of IRISYS, said, "While Tesco initially lead the way with this technology, many other retailers both in Europe and the US are now following suit as they recognise that better service, cost-effectively delivered by IRISYS SMARTLANE technology, can drive both sales and bottom-line growth." |GlobalGiants.com|