Kum & Go Convenience Store

The local Kum & Go convenience store down the street from the office is usually manned with a couple of college aged kids.  They are at the register, refilling the coffee pot, cleaning the parking lot and doing lots of tasks throughout the day.  Each store must have 1,000 items in inventory.  So how do they keep track of all of the gum, chips and cigarettes and keep the supply chain efficient while managing all of the other tasks?

Dave was running the register this morning.  As soon as he gave me change for my coffee purchase, he pulled out a Symbol handheld device and was quickly in the automotive section counting quarts of oil and ice scrapers.  Kum & Go has a slick system where Dave can count his inventory in a short amount of time on a mobile computer, then take this to the PC behind the counter, dock it and then the device downloads all of the information to headquarters in Iowa.

Kum & Go is not a Fortune 1000 company with a huge staff of I.T. people running systems, but they have discovered the value of mobility.