Sun.Star Cebu <> Tuesday, March 27, 2007
BY NANCY R. CUDIS, Sun.Star Correspondent
OWNERS of grocery stores and restaurants may want to try out what the new computer engineering graduates have made especially for them and their clients.
The partnership of Microwarehouse Inc. and the University of San Carlos’ department of computer engineering produced two applications in e-ordering using Personal Digital Assistants (PDA).
The first application is a beam station in a grocery store to provide convenience to shoppers.
Query
Using the PDA and an infrared device, a customer can make a query of the available items in the store.
After choosing the items, the customer beams the grocery list in the station and goes to another computer that serves as the cashier to pay and claim the items.
“Customers will no longer have to make their way over crowded aisles and wait in line for the cashier because they can use their PDAs,” said Sarah Maricar Arias, the quality assurance manager in the project.
All stores
Project manager Joan-na Tan said that their e-ordering system is not only limited to grocery stores, but can also be used in department stores.
Its other features include an inventory report and a sales report.
The second application is called Pakals, which aimed at coming up with a software that will explore on the utilities provided by the native Palm OS.
Project manager Christian Orongan said that parallel to the growth of Cebu is the growing number of fine dining restaurants.
Pakals will help waiters, cooks and cashiers become more efficient.
With wireless fidelity or Wi-Fi, the waiter can take orders from a table and just relay the order to the kitchen without having to run back and forth.
Convenience
The other features of the system include color-coding of users and transaction order report.
“This e-ordering software is very dynamic and flexible that the administrator could change items, colors and users,” said Orongan.
He added that they already presented the project to some waiters, who expressed interest in using the application because of the convenience it can bring.
Romil Jose Fernandez of Microwarehouse Inc, distributor of handheld devices, advised the two groups to create a business where they can sell their software.
He added that the projects assure companies of faster and efficient service.
The proponents of the systems just graduated from college last week.
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