Case Study: Revolutionizing the Retail Sector

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Digipos has been entirely using Intel technology on its product in order to develop high quality products to customers, have confidence in approaching customers and marketing their products as Intel is known worldwide for developing quality products, and reduce total cost of ownership of its products. The company was facing the problem of complete replacement of its systems by retailers after every seven years during system upgrade. This made the businesses to close down during upgrade which resulted to loss of revenue and reputation. The company solved the problem by developing a product, DigiPoS Retail Blade, based on embedded Intel architecture processor and was the first EPoS system to use blade technology which allowed retailers to replace only parts that needed replacement and not the entire system. It could also have identified the most critical components of the EPoS system such as processors and memory or systems that are prone to failure or damage and make them dual i.e. operate concurrently and when one fails the other picks up. In addition to comparing and contrasting Retail Blade and Quantum Blade products, this document discusses the strategies Digipos employ in order to reduce total quality management. In this regard, it produces high quality products that would reduce the cost of performing maintenance, repairs, support, and upgrades as the products will work for long periods.

Case Study: Revolutionizing the Retail Sector

Main Computing Problems Faced by Digipos with Regard to System Upgrade

Many computing systems face various problems with regard to system upgrade. While some systems allow for replacement of parts during upgrading, others require the replacement of the entire system calling for purchase of new systems. Digipos faced the problem of requiring complete replacement of their EPoS solutions after every seven years of operation. Though this could have brought revenue to the company as retailers were forced to buy new systems for upgrading their old systems, retailers were experiencing extra expenses as they were not provided by an alternative of replacing systems in parts. In computing system, the design of any architecture should take into consideration the need for replacement of parts during upgrade to prolong the life of computing systems (Hwang, 2003). This provides consumers or users with options of either replacing parts or the entire system.

Complete replacement of the EPoS solution was not beneficial to retailers. Since EPoS solution was core in retail business, businesses were forced to close down during upgrade which resulted to loss of revenue and reputation. Computing systems have become core in business environment and upgrading them through direct cut-over poses high risks to businesses (Lucey, 2004). They should be designed and developed in a manner that users can opt to swap only the parts that need upgrade or replace the entire system. Replacing entire computer system would mean that in the event of malfunction of a small subsystem or component, the entire system gets replaced. This would increase electronic waste thereby the consequences of e-waste, and create unnecessary increased demand for whole computer systems. In addition, users would have to spend extra cash buying products that they would have easily upgraded using cheaper parts. New system upgrade also requires data cleanup and conversion to fit in the new system which also takes some time.

Solutions to the Problem

DigiPoS solved the problem by developing a product, DigiPoS Retail Blade, which allowed retailers to replace only parts that needed replacement and not the entire system. DigiPoS Retail Blade was based on embedded Intel architecture processor and was the first EPoS system to use blade technology. It enables users to only replace the parts that needed upgrade therefore relieving them from the problem of completely replacing their entire systems. Retailers could identify the parts that needed maintenance or replacement such as hard disk or motherboard, remove them and take them for maintenance or upgrading to those with high performance. In this regard, retailers can introduce technologies that perform highly in their systems without interfering with installations and configuration (El-Rewini & Abd-El-Barr, 2005). This makes them save some money as the upgrade can extend the lives of the EPoS system. The design also reduces the time DigiPoS Retail Blade is down for maintenance and allows machine extension therefore can be connected with many devices.

With the current intensive work done by computers and sensitivity of information processed by computers, their working becomes critical as any failure can cause a lot of problems to retailers. In this regard, Digipos could identify the most critical components of the EPoS system such as processors and memory or systems that are prone to failure or damage and make them dual i.e. operate concurrently and when one fails the other picks up. This could make the entire system reliable as failure of a single dual component could not call for upgrade of the entire system as another could take up the work and make the machine to work longer (Shooman, 2003).

The Quantum Blade and the Retail Blade

Both Retail Blade and Quantum Blade are based on Intel architecture processors and employ blade technology. Unlike the traditional EPoS systems that required complete replacement of the system during system upgrade, both Retail Blade and Quantum Blade allow retailers to replace only the parts that they deem need upgrading. In this regard, retailers can remove only the parts that need maintenance and upgrading to be serviced and replace them after servicing. As a result, retailers can identify high performing technologies that are compatible with the systems and connect them while maintaining installations and configurations. Like any other DigiPoS product, both Retail Blade and Quantum Blade relied on Intel embedded reference designs during their development.

While the Intel Retail Blade use embedded Intel processor, Quantum Blade uses a more advanced processor, Intel Atom processor, and other advanced technologies such as Intel chipset and network card. Regarding energy efficiency, Quantum Blade is 60% more efficient than Retail Blade making retailers to save up to $57 in each system annually while increasing system performance by 30%. While the Retail Blade has moving parts which increase the chances of failure, Quantum Blade utilizes Intel SSD which has no moving parts therefore reliable. This also increases productivity and performance of the system. The Intel SSD also makes Quantum Blade to use energy efficiently as it (SSD) consumes less power compared to hard disk drives.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Total cost of ownership (TCO) enables people to make decisions regarding their finances by determining the complete cost of an item from the time of purchase to the time of disposal (Devi, 2005). In addition to the cost incurred during purchase, it includes other costs which customers expect to incur during the entire life of a product. DigiPoS utilizes Intel technology as they are known in the whole world to be the technology that performs well. In this regard, the company uses the technology in order to produce high quality products. High quality products would mean that though the purchase price might be slightly higher compared to competitors’, the cost of performing maintenance, repairs, support, and upgrades will be low as the products will work for long periods without having to perform the aforementioned. High quality products will also reduce the costs associated with dealing with failures of the machine and products returned due to defects. The cost of dealing or managing non-ISO certified products or companies will also be reduced including time taken to test and label new products. By developing products that use energy efficiently, DigiPoS reduces the cost of energy consumption by its machines therefore reducing the cost of energy a machine takes in its entire life. In addition, developing high quality products such as the Quantum Blade which uses reliable Intel SSD reduces costs associated with reliability and therefore the company’s approach to reduce the total cost of ownership through developing high quality products using Intel technology will truly work.

DigiPoS is currently working on developing the next generation Quantum Blade which will run on Intel Core i7 vPro processor and Intel Q67 Express chipset which will enable retailers to manage their systems remotely i.e. through a network. This brings the advantage of sharing resources as two or more branches can share a single EPoS system. In this regard, retailers would save the cost of buying many EPoS systems to install in their various business branches. Using the system, retailers can also maintain their systems remotely without having to travel to the exact physical location of a device. Since the next generation system will enable retailers to query and fix devices even when power is switched off, the cost of powering system during querying and fixing devices will be reduced therefore lowering TCO.

References

Devi, M. (2005). Total cost of ownership – An introduction. ICFA University Press.

El-Rewini, H. & Abd-El-Barr, M. (2005). Advanced computer architecture and parallel processing. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Hwang, K. (2003). Advanced computer architecture. India: McGraw-Hill Education Pvt Limited.

Lucey, T. (2004). Management information systems. New York, NY: Cengage Learning EMEA.

Shooman, M. L. (2003). Reliability of computer systems and networks: Fault tolerance, analysis, and design. New York, NY: Jon Wiley & Sons.