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TRAINING TOOL AIDS SHAW'S AUTOMATED OUTPUT

EAST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- Shaw's Supermarkets here is rolling out a computerized training program to teach in-store bakery personnel how to use the chain's automated bakery production management system.tium-based personal computer, and will eventually be adapted to the chain's training needs in other departments as well."It's for just about everything in the store, and if not it will be," Bernie

EAST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- Shaw's Supermarkets here is rolling out a computerized training program to teach in-store bakery personnel how to use the chain's automated bakery production management system.

tium-based personal computer, and will eventually be adapted to the chain's training needs in other departments as well.

"It's for just about everything in the store, and if not it will be," Bernie Rogan, spokesman for Shaw's, told SN.

In the bakery department, the application is expected to help the chain overcome obstacles it has encountered in training its store-level associates to use an automated bakery production management system, known as ABP, that Shaw's has been rolling out for more than a year.

"Shaw's has the challenge of training the in-store bakery associates in many locations and many different times of the day," said Jay Yesselman of Video Information Systems Development Corp., Waltham, Mass., which helped Shaw's develop the training application. "Plus, they have high turnover. So how do you get someone [to the point at which they are] familiar and productive with the ABP system? You can't just do that in the classroom." Yesselman said the training program is simple to use. "Our program is totally graphical point and click," he explained. "There is a video in it that holds people's hands rather well."

The system also allows Shaw's to evaluate each employee's training progress through tracking and reporting features. "The program tells management how long a particular person has spent in a specific area of the training session, what were their responses to activity practice questions and how many of the quiz question they got right or wrong," said Yesselman.

Yesselman said Shaw's owns the application, and will be able to distribute it freely and without limit. Indeed, the chain plans to market the training program in more universal forms to other retailers, according to Shaw's Rogan.

The automated production management system has been installed in all 121 of Shaw's stores since last August. It analyzes historical bakery sales data to help each department make decisions about factors such as its baking schedule, correct quantities of ingredients, portion sizes, and the amounts of each item to be produced. It was developed by Sapient Corp., Cambridge, Mass.