Darice Corporation
(Pat Catan's Craft Centers)

Looking for a Retail POS Business Partner with Total Project Capability, Not Just a Hardware Supplier

Situation
Darice Corporation is a retailer operating arts and craft centers under the name of Pat Catan's Craft Centers throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania. Due to operational concerns regarding aging POS hardware, Darice began to search for a new POS hardware vendor that could supply an open systems hardware solution, minimize system downtime, and be responsive to managing their unique service needs. Most importantly, Darice wanted a vendor that would work with them as a business partner, not just a hardware supplier.

Darice was looking for a vendor that could provide a complete project solution to reduce their staff involvement and simplify the delivery, installation and ongoing servicing of POS units in their stores. They wanted the installation and product configuration process to be quick and not disrupt their day to day retail operations. They also wanted to ensure that systems would be up and running as quickly as possible if any part of a store's system needed to be repaired.

Solution
Ultimate Technology consulted with Darice regarding their POS needs, the maintenance requirements for their systems, and other daily business operation details. Based on these discussions, Ultimate Technology offered a solution that includes the contemporary 2800 Series Integrated POS system, a Hot Swap Replacement Maintenance program and a number of other value added services. Other services included quality technical support, product staging and integration, system installation, and peripheral configuration management.

As part of the staging and installation services, an Ultimate Technology application engineer performed a site survey at one of the Pat Catan locations to determine the exact configuration setup and installation needs for the retailer. A full system was installed and tested at the site to establish the model for the roll-out to all other stores. This staged configuration was then duplicated at Ultimate Technology and used to configure every system prior to shipment to Pat Catan's individual store locations. In addition, the loading of the POS application software, all device driver software, and the configuration settings for the POS peripherals such as bar code scanners was completed by Ultimate Technology prior to shipping.

During the original installation of the first system it was discovered that there was a minor issue with an application software interface to the magnetic card swipe device supplied from another vendor and integrated into the total solution. Although Ultimate Technology was not responsible for that code, an Ultimate Technology software engineer was able to assess the situation, determined the cause of the problem, and wrote a software patch to fix the issue.

To eliminate interruption of the Catan store business, Ultimate Technology installed all systems on Saturday and Sunday evenings, after the stores were closed.

A Hot Swap Replacement program was put in place so that if a maintenance issue occurred with any part of the system in the field, an operational replacement component would be dispatched and available at the store location by the next business day. This allows Darice store personnel to install the operational unit, increasing system availability.

Results
The partnership between Ultimate Technology and Darice allowed for a smooth upgrade of POS systems in all Darice's Pat Catan's Craft Centers. The project was completed on time, and within budget. Because systems were staged, integrated and configured at Ultimate Technology prior to delivery, over 180 POS systems were able to be installed without disrupting Darice's retail operations. With these installation services being provided, Darice could minimize resources required for the upgrades.

Once the systems were installed, Darice immediately recognized that system downtime was "reduced dramatically". In the rare event that a system has had a maintenance issue, the Hot Swap Replacement program has enabled Darice to get a replacement unit and be up and running by the next business day.

"Ultimate Technology was able to quickly assess our technology requirements and design a solution that allowed us to deploy a contemporary open hardware solution that provides us options on our peripheral and software selection now and in the future", says Jim Petkunas, IT Director at Darice. "Another important factor was their ability to provide a maintenance program that met our needs. We also feel that Ultimate Technology provides the personalized service and support we are looking for in a business partner."