Technology
My first experience with technology was when I worked for a grocery store called Dominick's Finer Foods. We used a hand held unit called a Telzon machine. This was a hand held unit, which came out in 1986, had a laser gun attached to it and you were able to order product and keep inventory on it. Previous to this we had to order everything manually with books. Each product had a UPC code and we had to manually write the amount of product for each code. The bad thing about the system was that the chance for error was great. With Telzon machine ordering product was much easier because all you had to do was walk down the aisle, each product was represented by tag, and if he needed the product you would just aim the gun at the the tag that represented the product and the machine would beep back at you confirming the order and presto the product was ordered. Previous to this writing in order for product took three times as long and was less accurate. This was a major innovation in a grocery store.
The bad thing about this machine was that periodically during transmission it would malfunction. The result of this malfunction might mean if you ordered a particular quantity you would receive a different quantity. For example, I once ordered two cases of tuna fish and receive 50. That week we had what they call in the grocery industry and manager's special on StarKist tuna. I made a display, put the tuna in the middle of the display, and on the sides of the display I put mayonnaise. Then I put a price on each of the items and oddly enough it sold within a week, at 25% profit. The point I am trying to make is that this particular machine saved many labor hours but sometimes caused hours to be spent due to mistakes. All in all this made the job much easier and is used still today. Surely, they have made advancements with this technology and eliminated most of the problems that occurred in the past.
The bad thing about this machine was that periodically during transmission it would malfunction. The result of this malfunction might mean if you ordered a particular quantity you would receive a different quantity. For example, I once ordered two cases of tuna fish and receive 50. That week we had what they call in the grocery industry and manager's special on StarKist tuna. I made a display, put the tuna in the middle of the display, and on the sides of the display I put mayonnaise. Then I put a price on each of the items and oddly enough it sold within a week, at 25% profit. The point I am trying to make is that this particular machine saved many labor hours but sometimes caused hours to be spent due to mistakes. All in all this made the job much easier and is used still today. Surely, they have made advancements with this technology and eliminated most of the problems that occurred in the past.
5 comments:
It was good.
That was very interesting, i really never thought about that. I work at a store that does inventory and then we have to order it by hand(which isnt that bad because we are a very small restuarant chain) but I still think we should have one of those! Less work for me, I'm all for it.
Thats cool. That machine actually sounds like something my dad had when he worked at Nabisco lol. There is alot of technology that make people jobs easier, look at doctors and nurses or even buisness people they all have to use some form of technology for their professions and it saves them alot of time too.
im must say...my time is totally different than it was for you when you were my age. the laser invention was probably an amazing invention for your store and i work at a grocery store and we use it all the time....and we don't really find it amusing anymore. haha but there deff. has been a huge change between the days when you were a teen and now.
Technology in the workplace is always changing. Like you I am very greatful for technology at work because it saves an incredible amount of time. I use a PDT at work. It's basically a PDA, but it makes locating things very easy. Without the ever changing technology work would be much more difficult.
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