Datalogic Mobile Handheld Terminals measure up at Dunelm Mill

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Datalogic Mobile Handheld Terminals measure up at Dunelm Mill.

Dunelm Mill has quickly risen to become one of the UKs leading home furnishing retailers.  Today, there are   90 Dunelm Mill stores across the UK with a turnover in excess of 350million and over 5,000 employees.

Dunelm Mill has recently rolled out Datalogic Skorpio RF Handheld Terminals across some of its stores.  Over 100 devices have been supplied to Dunelm Mill by Datalogic Mobile Partner Pen Mobile Solutions, an independent company with considerable experience in the Auto ID sector.  

The terminals are used in the fabric department after the customer has selected the fabric they want to purchase, an assistant scans a bar code menu to identify the brand and type using the Skorpios integrated bar code laser scanner.  After the fabric has been measured, the assistant then keys in the length using the Skorpios compact alphanumeric keypad.  A signal is sent automatically using Dunelm Mills in-store WLAN infrastructure to a printer which generates two bar code labels.  One is applied to the measured fabric so that the customer can take their purchase to the checkout, whilst the other is applied to the remaining fabric roll.  The latter denotes how much material is left on the roll and is used later for stocktaking.

The Datalogic Skorpio was chosen due to its compact size and price/performance.  A number of alternative devices were tested.  Norman Unsworth, Special Projects Manager at Dunelm Mill comments: The Skorpios have been extremely reliable and very easy for us to install.  We particularly appreciate the pre-sales technical support Datalogic Mobile provided, which enabled us to rapidly build our application on the Skorpios.  Datalogic Mobiles locked web browser tool further enhances the application as it prevents users from exiting our application and changing any configurations on the handheld.

The Skorpios have replaced some of the older, terminals which were beginning to become unreliable and uneconomic.  The Skorpios have been a lot easier to support. We can resolve most issues ourselves whereas the previous older devices had to be sent back to the repair  centre for even the most basic of changes.

Datalogic Mobile UKs Country Manager, Colin Pike, comments: Despite  very difficult trading conditions out there, most progressive retailers are continuing to invest in mobile devices.  This technology has long proven to be a key element in improving the efficiency of retail stores automation.