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Home Depot: NCR Kicked Out Because Self-Checkout Rival 20 Percent Faster, More Functionality

Written by Evan Schuman
January 21st, 2010
Longtime self-checkout enthusiast Home Depot is sticking with self-checkout but making a change in its self-checkout software. The home improvement superstore is pushing NCR software out and bringing Fujitsu in, at least in the chain's U.S. and Canadian stores. The chain had been using NCR machines running NCR software but will now apparently be loading Fujitsu software onto those NCR machines, according to Fujitsu officials. The NCR hardware will be staying, for now.

The change was for several reasons, including "some functionality in the Fujitsu software that we really liked and needed" that wasn't offered by NCR and testing that showed Fujitsu's software on NCR self-checkout units performed about 20 percent faster than when NCR's own software was loaded on its units, said Cara Kinzey, Home Depot's Senior VP of IT.

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Posted in In-Store, IT Strategy/Industry, Payment Systems, Premium Content, Security/Fraud
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2 Comments | Read Home Depot: NCR Kicked Out Because Self-Checkout Rival 20 Percent Faster, More Functionality

  1. Bob LeMay Says:
    January 28th, 2010 at 11:51 am

    Swapping out self-checkout software for only a 20% speed improvement seems drastic. 8 seconds instead of 10?

    Either Home Depot is REALLY focused on the customer experience, or the other functionality is the primary reason…

  2. Neal Henkes Says:
    January 29th, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    This may have more to do with enhancing their efforts to obtain / use customer data.

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