Tesco has spent up to£330,000 on 3,000 wireless printers to speed up the reaction rate of staff when marking down products.
The printers, from Zebra Technologies, have a real-time link with the company's core systems, so products can be re-priced as soon as the decision has been made to mark them down.
According to a spokesman for Zebra, the investment is alongside Tesco moving its in-house systems to new wireless Local Area Networks from Cisco Systems. The printer system replaces a solution from terminal maker Telxon and printer specialist Tec that was nearing the end of its life and becoming uneconomical.
The Zebra printers are linked, via the network, to handheld terminals from Intermec. This continual link to the company network allows the terminals and printers to be remotely managed without having to be docked to a fixed network link.
Tesco also favoured the ruggedised printers because, according to the Zebra spokeswoman, the grocer had experienced some workers breaking previous terminals to avoid the onerous task of marking down products.
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