Thread regarding Sears layoffs

If someone at a Kmart store can verify this for me I would appreciate it.

I know the registers are IBM Sure POS 4800-7xx, if someone could find the exact model number that will help.

The Symbol RMUs are PDT6840, considered EOL by symbol as of 2008

If someone could check on the price checkers on the poles at Kmart that will help please. For the model numbers

Right now, I know this is an unusual question.

Why is it at closing stores they have the Liqudator or employee wipe the server's and still ship it out instead of just pulling the hard drive out of each server and recycling the old server?

I bet pulling the HDD will be too hard for certain employees to do?

Has anyone on this thread done the a equipment checklist when your store liquidates of what has to be returned to the warehouse and what has to be destroyed from a IT standpoint?

"Random merchandise gets shipped to the store while other products are not replenished when they need to be. "

For all banners, stores can reorder OOS product, but rarely do, because there is a lack of training on how to do it and a lot of managers discourage it, for whatever reason. Depending on the inventory system to reorder for you is a crapshoot, especially if the in-store count is 1 or greater. It won't send more product if there's 1 sitting in the store, whether it's really there or not. Btw, there aren't cycle counts or updating at the store level because there isn't time to get it done.

"On-hand counts magically change for no apparent reason. "

When you are sent a truck, all of the inventory loaded onto the truck from the DC shows up in your inventory even before it is offloaded into your backrooms. That is why there is pressure to unload a full truck as soon as it arrives at the store. Items are already in inventory and can be ordered for store pickup or shipping.

The registers worked fine with the old blue/black screen menu-based software (this is/was at Sears anyways, I'm not sure what Kmart used a few years ago). Yes, the registers were dated and yes, many employees and customers scoffed at the 1980's look (some mistakenly called it DOS---it was really Linux, and still is. It's derived from Ubuntu Linux, in fact.). But...it worked! It was intuitive, at least for someone who has a modicum of intuition.

Then the touch-based GUI interface came along. It's still good old Linux, just bloated up with a GUI. I was the only employee that frowned. Why? I knew that this software would bog down the machine. Others were excited to "finally dump DOS". Little did they know that it would take twice the amount of time to complete a simple transaction (and lock up at the most inconvenient moments)...sure enough, I was right.

The SurePOS 700 machines are typically equipped with a Pentium III at about 500 MHz and 512 MB of SDRAM. Linux is good at using resources efficiently, but any modern OS will slow down if that machine cannot handle modern GUIs. It cannot run a GUI of anything newer than, say, Windows XP, or, if you know Linux, something like Ubuntu 7.10 with Gnome 3.

Because the software is maxing out these registers, they have been running slower, running warmer and have often just shut off for what others think is "for no reason"...that "no apparent reason" are the thermal sensors of the processor kicking in to prevent the system from burning itself up. Every so often, the morning cleaning crew will blast some canned air around the registers to help this situation, but that's only the exterior. The interior is probably coated with dust, and I'm not so sure if I'm allowed to crack them open to clean them (I'm a junior-year compsci student, so this is dead-simple stuff when everyone else thinks it's brain surgery). Oh, well, in the grand scheme of things, they don't care. Why should I?

Meanwhile, many Sears stores have iPads for use by sales associates. I cannot believe that Sears was so willing to deploy iPads to sales associates (including myself, I sell appliances until my internship, then I'm outta here). They spent money that could have been used to purchase and deploy newer registers. Someone told me that the whole "integrated retailer", "embrace change and technology" and yada yada was to prop up the sales performance of their online business. In other words, iPad/ShopSears sales count as an online sale to investors even though it was completed in the store. I don't know if that's true but if it is that has to be fraudulent, I would think. I don't know the whole story behind that, but regardless, it's pure stupidity.

Sears website s---s mostly because it is a shot in the dark as to whether something will be available to order. I've noticed this a lot especially for thing sold through Sears.com and fulfilled by Kmart. If it is sold by Kmart nine chances out of ten it suddenly becomes unavailable (even at the Kmart.com site) if there isn't one near you for store pickup. Sort modifiers (price, for example) don't always work. No way this will ever compete with Amazon.

Our inventory system is a blast from the past. I think that all of it is all mainframe, which is legacy. I don't think we have a fully-functioning inventory system. Random merchandise gets shipped to the store while other products are not replenished when they need to be. On-hand counts magically change for no apparent reason. Orders drop out of the system from time to time, for no apparent reason.

RES sign system is another disaster. I think that's more of an operator error (at headquarters, whoever's in charge of pricing/signing) but I'm not entirely sure...the whole signing system is FUBAR at our store. Multiple signs for the same product, missing signs for others. Pricing mistakes from higher up are apparently acceptable because there is always "emergency" signs every single morning.

TL,DR: Sears IT systems s---. Eddie Lampert can be found at Goodwill stores searching for that perfect find--an old full-tower server with a copy of Windows NT 4.0 to run all company systems and some old 486 desktops found at flea markets for the stores to use. As soon as he does, he's pawning off the much newer systems to get the much-needed cash to make it through the holiday.

Thanks for the feedback. Looking forward to hearing from everyone on there experience with this issue.

Kmart & Sears & SHOS

At Sears they will still send a tech most of the time, but in our store the situation is very similar to what you described. We have a few registers that we use all the time because they work, and the rest are basically used for their parts. Last holiday season really hit the registers hard causing many of them to die. They needed new fans and power supplies, but they didn't really fix them. This year will be terrible without enough registers even if we have the cashiers. Don't know how we are supposed to get sales or improve sales if we don't even have the proper equipment to collect payment.

Here is what I want to find out from you guys at store level?

Has it gotten to a point where they will no longer send a NCR tech out to fix a register and just making the stores fix it themselves at Kmart stores?

Do you have 1 or 2 registers that are not used that you strip for parts?

Are replacement RMUs being sent out?

Is any replacement equipment being sent to stores if equipment breaks?

Have you been told you have to fix it your selves??

Sorry for so many questions. I am trying to get an idea of how bad things are at store level?