Albert Heijn is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands. In 2018 they switched from regular printed price tags to e-ink price tags. Also called Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs). ESL’s consists of 2 parts, one is the ESL and the other one is the plastic holder which affixes the price tag to the product shelf. The ESL costs about 5 euro’s and the holders are 8 cents. While the tags work great there is a real-world problem that wasn’t accounted for because every day sad sights like these can be seen at any given Albert Heijn.
The damage shown is the result of the bottom row ESL’s which are getting hit by the wheels of the shopping carts. Every day at least 18 of these instances occure.
On average its takes somewhere between 5 seconds to either stick them back up or up to 7 minutes get a new clip to replace the broken one. Let’s say it takes 2 minutes on average, that is 36 minutes lost labour per day per AH location. To put that in perspective, if you would ask 1 person to reattach the ESL’s in all AH locations he/she would need to put 16 weeks of labour in one day.
As can be seen here. It’s 5 mm that causes all the damage.
The solution I came up with was simple, by reversing the bar which holds the ELS there is no more danger of the ELS being hit by the shopping cart wheels.
In the picture you can see the old situation (lower bar in the image) and the new one. (higher bar in the image)
Here is the before and after situation. The difference is clearly visible.
With the bar reversed the ELS can no longer be damaged by the shopping cart wheels.
This might seem trivial but based on averages this implementation saves the AH roughly €4300,- on a daily bases.
- € 506,- in new clips saved daily
- € 3800,- in wasted labour costs saved daily
A simple fix to a big problem!
