H-E-B FRONT ENDS GO TO PCS, OPEN SYSTEMS

DENISE ZIMMERMAN

SAN ANTONIO -- H-E-B Grocery Co. is making the technological leap from conventional cash registers to personal computers and an open-system environment at the front end.

The chain here has already made the switch in close to 50 stores, at a cost of about $180,000 per store, and expects to complete a chainwide conversion by the middle of next year.

The reasons for the switchover are manifold. They include lower maintenance costs, increasing point-of-sale versatility and the "plug and play" flexibility aspects inherent in an open-system type of environment, said a source familiar with the situation.

The system will provide H-E-B with a number of applications to help the chain do a better job in catering to various demographic consumer groups.

For instance, the point-of-sale scanners can be programmed to conduct transactions, including reading and printing receipts, in Spanish as well as English. That feature is considered especially important for H-E-B because it operates several stores on the border of Mexico. The chain expects to have that option in place in more than 50 stores by late this year.

The system, developed by ACR Systems, Jacksonville, Fla., is also credited with helping boost checkout productivity, according to another source familiar with the situation. The PC hardware is provided by Digital Equipment Corp., Merrimack, N.H.

"Another neat feature is alphanumeric searchability," the source said. "For instance, if there isn't a universal product code on a product, or it's not readable, the cashier can just key in a

word within the product, like 'Tide,' and the screen will bring up every item that has the word 'Tide' in it. It's very fast and eliminates a lot of running around the store to find products."

Scanning productivity has risen about 8% at stores with the new system, the source added.

At the front end, a computer graphics program will help cashiers correctly identify fruits and vegetables by matching items to images on a 15-inch color monitor. The program, to go on line in the next few months, can also be used for training purposes, a company source said.

"We have 20 kinds of apples in our stores and teaching those checkers the difference and the four-digit code is an ongoing challenge," he added.

Operating enhancements don't stop at the front end, though. Under a program dubbed Store Office Automation Project, H-E-B is also exploring a "paperless" accounting system.

"It's meant to handle a lot of non-POS functions, like banking, withdrawals, ATM," said one of the sources. "The system is designed to automate all those functions and to take those skilled people involved in clerk-like projects and devote them more to customer service."

Such automation of bookkeeping functions, said a company source, has shaved some 15 to 20 hours from the weekly workload.

The SOAP program is one of two such enhancements that H-E-B sought out when it began looking at open systems a year ago. Another important function is the establishment of a data base to monitor checker performance.

By recording voids, no sales and refunds generated by an individual checker, H-E-B can keep tabs on training issues, shrink and theft. "The information is based on the location of the operator's sales, so we track checkers by workstation, or group of workstations," a source said.

The functionality open systems are already bringing to H-E-B stores today will only be enhanced in years to come, said a company executive. "We're not going to be facing planned obsolescence," said a source at H-E-B. With open systems, "instead of the vendor being in control, we are," he said.

Moving at a rate of about three to four store installations each week, H-E-B will have about 50 of its 161 Texas stores outfitted with new scanner and point-of-sale systems by the end of May. The chain expects to be fully on-line with the open systems by mid-1995, said an H-E-B official.