Case Study
Seamless self-service check-outs:
How a grocery store chain streamlined POS terminal updates with remote kiosk monitoring
OUR CLIENT
This American grocery store chain has served customers in communities across the South for over a century. With a focus on innovation, collaboration, and integrity, the company has been named one of the best places to work by many prominent workplace publications and generates nearly $40 billion in revenue annually.
THE CHALLENGE
Keeping self-service POS terminals up to date to provide seamless customer experiences
This chain of grocery stores uses a fleet of self-service check-out kiosks to accelerate purchase transactions, provide convenience to customers, and enhance shopper experiences. Across the company’s expansive footprint of more than 400 stores, the IT team struggled to:
- Keep inventory data current—with accurate product pricing, stock levels, and promotional discounts
- Manage the distributed fleet of kiosks—to ensure connectivity, responsiveness, security, and optimal performance
- Perform remote diagnostics—so personnel don’t have to visit stores and manually repair machines
THE TRANSFORMATION
Using a digital twin to optimize kiosk operations for centralized edge control
UST implemented a remote device orchestration solution to streamline inventory data and technology updates to the self-service POS kiosks. By using a digital twin as a virtual representation of the geographically distributed check-out terminal environment, IT personnel can:
- Synchronize inventory data—to deliver real-time price updates and ensure product information is accurate across the entire fleet
- Manage the kiosk fleet from a central location—giving the company a single source of truth for edge device performance monitoring to ensure terminals are always configured properly, software is up-to-date, and devices are operating at peak performance
- Use automations to streamline remote kiosk maintenance—thanks to the digital twin’s embedded AI, ML, and data analytics functionality that helps identify and resolve issues quickly
- Troubleshoot kiosk issues remotely—ensuring speedy resolutions and avoiding the costs associated with field service technicians
THE IMPACT
Optimized self-service kiosk management across 400+ grocery store locations
The grocery store chain now has an efficient, automated, data-driven solution to manage its distributed fleet of self-service check-out kiosks. The remote, edge-device orchestration ensures seamless functionality across the company’s expansive POS environment, enabling real-time responsiveness to connectivity, process, security, and diagnostic issues while enhancing customer experiences and profitability. The solution can easily scale to keep pace with the company’s rapid growth.
RESOURCES
https://www.ust.com/en/what-we-do/strategy-implementation-operations