2004 Award Winners
Award-winning project: dm-drogerie markt goes online to the sales shelf
Project partners: dm-drogerie markt GmbH & Co. KG | Steinbeis Transfer Center Innovation > Development > Application (IDA)/Karlsruhe
A typical scenario in a branch of the dm drogerie markt chain: an employee uses a barcode scanner at the shelf to check stock levels of shaving foam products. She then enters the results into the stock management system in the office. Mobile computing now makes this process more accurate, quicker and easier.
The dm-drogerie markt chain, a company with more than 1,500 branches across Europe, is regarded as an innovative retail enterprise. With a product range of around 12,000 drugstore items, the company aims to make stock enquiries, stock adjustments and product enquiries as straightforward as possible. The Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Innovation > Development > Application (IDA) in Karlsruhe has therefore – in close collaboration with dm – optimised the exchange of information between the local branch computers and mobile data collection devices. New software has been developed for the PDA-based data collection device, a microcomputer with a built-in barcode scanner and wireless connection. With this upgraded online device, staff will in future be able to transmit up-to-date information directly from the shelves and all other workstations within the branches to the local branch computer. Errors will become less frequent, and processes will be carried out more efficiently. The time saved can then be channelled into serving customers even better.
From spring 2005, the mobile online devices will be deployed in the first pilot branches, after which the new technology will be introduced step by step across all 1,500 branches. And the work continues: the current focus for the software specialists at dm and the Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Industrial Data Processing is research into speech recognition on PDAs. Users would then no longer need a stylus for input, and the devices could be designed to be more ergonomic – another step towards the future.