Repair without screwdrivers, COM ports and 7 years of spare parts availability: how iron reliability is provided for stores

We have already talked about why modern stores are true technological enterprises with a powerful infrastructure . They use advanced IT systems, but the world of retail technologies is very different from what users of home or office products and gadgets are used to.

Today we will talk about how manufacturers of iron used in stores ensure its reliability. For example, consider the most important device of any point of sale - cash.
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Who makes the box office

POS-terminals - so in retail terminology are called cash registers - are special computers with various components. At the same time, many PC brands familiar to users of PCs like Apple, Asus or Dell do not make equipment for retail. The situation on the cash register production market is very different - there are strong positions of companies such as IBM Toshiba, Fujitsu, Wincor Nixdorf, NCR, which merged with the retail business. These companies produce modular disperse and sensory cash registers — we wrote about their differences in more detail here .

Reliability requirements for the retail infrastructure are significantly higher than those for home or office equipment, which is why the approach of vendors working in the market to production and service is seriously different from the usual ones for ordinary users.

Iron features for retail

The differences between a cash register computer and a PC are numerous, the first thing that catches your eye is the processors. The vast majority of cash registers do not use AMD processors, which is quite unusual for PC users. Almost all the vendors in their products use Intel processors.

Cashier has to work with a large number of connected devices - scales, barcode scanners, payment terminals of bank cards - and connections with them must be reliable. That is why POS equipment for stores still actively uses COM ports that have lost popularity in consumer electronics.

Cashier is a critical component of the store's infrastructure, if something goes wrong with it, sales will stop, queues and conflicts with customers will arise. Therefore, when using external devices together with it, reliable and time-tested COM technology is used.



In addition, the mode of using iron in retail is very different from what can be found in the office of a large and active company. Many stores are open 24 hours 7 days a week, while the equipment never turns off. Therefore, the iron must withstand operation in such a hard mode.

For example, TVs or monitors of home computers cannot work without stopping for many hours without burning out pixels, and touch-screen displays can withstand tens of millions of clicks.

Here everything depends on the quality of the components used by the vendor and, as a result, the price of the cash register - more expensive retail solutions, as a rule, last longer. The number of clicks to withstand depends on the type of screen - there are four-, five-, six-, seven-or eight-electrode displays. The simplest to manufacture and the cheapest are the four-electrode. They withstand 3 million clicks at one point. Five-wire is much more reliable - such screens can transfer 35 million clicks.

In addition to the cash register screens themselves, customer displays are actively used - the price of “punched” goods and other useful information about purchases are displayed on them. For such devices, the life cycle should be at least 20,000 hours of work, and their brightness - not less than 700 cd / m2.

Very reliable keyboards are used in cash registers - a resource of 50 million keystrokes is considered a good indicator, the key springs are made of stainless steel, and the contacts of the buttons have a special coating that prevents oxidation. Even cables for cash keyboards make interchangeable - they are connected using a special port.

Cashboxes cashier - also a mechanism that must have a high degree of reliability. The resource of the solenoid of such a device usually exceeds 3 million positives.

Cash registers are also protected from moisture, dust and other harmful factors - there are several degrees of such protection, ranging from IP54 to IP65. In the latter case, the ticket office can withstand a large amount of moisture - for example, spilled coffee in a fast food chain. Almost no dust penetrates into the case of the fanless cash register - therefore, this design reduces the need for preventive maintenance.

Reliability through service

POS equipment can withstand loads that are much larger than home devices are capable of carrying. In addition, such iron in stores should have a higher life cycle. For many outlets, it is perfectly normal to use cash registers for 5–7 years.



For the convenience of customers, vendors of POS equipment throughout this period provide its technical support and produce spare parts for the repair of even those products whose production is officially discontinued. For example, for discontinued equipment from Fujitsu for another 5 years, you can buy parts: the vendor necessarily provides this opportunity.

Great attention is paid to maintainability - the easier it is to disassemble the cash register to replace the failed component, the less it will be idle, and the store will suffer less losses. Therefore, some cash registers, for example from Toshiba, can be completely disassembled and assembled without a screwdriver.

Also, suppliers of products for retail are developing various service delivery schemes - for example, they expand the list of available warranty repair options by attracting integrating partners. We wrote more details about the advantages of this approach in this article .

How to choose reliable equipment

In conclusion, here are some practical tips for choosing reliable POS equipment for use in the store:

• The name of the manufacturer - the retail market is not easy, and companies that have just started producing equipment for it, it is difficult to immediately achieve high quality. Therefore, it is more logical to choose solutions from companies that have already proven themselves, and whose products have already won all children's diseases and learned how to make cash registers not only reliable, but also convenient to maintain. These include vendors from Korea and Taiwan, and their Chinese colleagues, although offering more attractive prices, still lag in quality.
  
  
• Terms of delivery and service - when buying such complex and business-critical equipment as a cash register, you need to take care of its further maintenance. Therefore, counterparties who only resell equipment should be avoided - as a rule, they offer long delivery times, which means difficulties with prompt repairs in the future. Ideally, the vendor should have an office in Russia or a local partner with whom you can enter into a contract for the supply and service of purchased iron and solve current problems with setting up and repairing.
  
  
• Equipment use segment - you need to select a cash desk so that its characteristics correspond to the conditions in which it will work. For example, in fast food establishments it is better to use sensory cash registers with a high degree of protection against moisture, and in supermarkets it is better to use modular dispersed cash registers, in which it is easier to replace individual components.