| dc.description.abstract | Supermarkets in Kenya use the barcode technology in inventory management. This leads to
long queues at the till thus adversely affecting efficiency of serving customers. In trying to
address this problem, a system was designed based on RFID technology that could overcome
the challenges of the existing systems and improve the efficiency of serving customers. The
study was about the implementation of RFID technology to improve efficiency of serving
customers using a Kenya supermarket as a case study. The objectives of the study were: to
design the system, to develop RFID technology shopping cart/basket/till and the Cart
Management Module (CMM), to train the supermarket attendants /customers on the new
system and to evaluate the system. A prototype called CMM was designed and tested. it
worked as the point of sale system as well as collected data on the shopping, queuing,
transaction, packing, total transaction and total shopping durations. CMM worked hand in
hand with two RFID readers namely the Check in /Checkout and till RFID readers. The data
was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Frequencies, means and standard deviations were
calculated and the results were: the mean shopping duration of 3.36, mean queuing duration of
1.68, mean transaction duration of 2.73, mean packing duration of 2.63, mean total transaction
time of 2.83 and mean total shopping time of 3.96 seconds. All objectives of the study were
achieved and it was concluded that RFID technology improves efficiency of serving customers
by drastically reducing time spent by customers in the supermarket. | en_US |
