I've been an Aldi fan for more than a decade, buying almost all of my family's groceries there (four kids, it's cheap and doesn't require figuring out what is really on sale this week vs. what is really over-priced this week, or messing with Coupons). The quality of most of their products meets or exceeds that of the name brands[1] except in a few circumstances (their equivalents to Cheerios and Frosted Mini Wheats are very sub-par, but in the case of the Cheerios, they're about half the price for a much larger box, so we mix 'em).
I actually get a little stressed when I arrive with a cart full of groceries and an empty line -- they ring them up at about twice the speed I can pull them off the cart.
The Aldi process is very well thought out. They're the only cashiers I've seen that sit in a chair while ringing things up. They needn't move, nearly at all, beyond swiping things past the register to read those giant barcodes (on anything store branded, which is most things). I remarked to the cashier about their ridiculous speed and was informed they are also tracked, directly, on their speed and have targets to meet (and incentives if they're "the fastest").
[1] Their produce is consistently good (love the sweet, small, green grapes) and their Frozen Chicken Nuggets are better tasting than any I've purchased, including the organic ones at Costco.
What the article doesn't mention: Aldi optimizing the speed of their cashiers is nothing new. The northern Aldi ("Aldi Nord") for a long time had three-digit article codes for every product that cashiers had to know by heart--which also meant that they couldn't have more than 1000 different products. In fact, that system was so efficient that they completely switched to bardcodes only in 2002 as they didn't see any advantage before that.
Interesting - Part of me wonders about what their accuracy rate was with that kind of system. 1,000 different 3-digit numbers is still a lot to remember. It's possible, but it would seem to add a pretty big barrier for a lot of people who would otherwise be fine as a cashier, elsewhere. Though when I worked at CompUSA in the early 90s, we lacked barcode readers and each product had a 6-digit SKU which meant only being able to remember a handful of them for the most popular products[0]. It was also horrible for accuracy because each SKU was assigned in order, so fat fingering any of the numbers would result in the wrong product being rung up. This was often caught, but if it was the last or second to last digit that was missed, it was likely to end up being a different version of the same product (more RAM, different CPU, etc) and it would be missed[1] resulting in either the customer paying more (unlikely - those were not missed) or paying less (likely, because the cashier wouldn't notice and the customer was less likely to say anything if they happened to actually notice and the result is them saving a few hundred bucks).
[0] We did have one cashier that I'm fairly certain had well over 90% of the products in the store memorized (we'd grab random things trying to throw him off, but he was like a machine). He had brain surgery a decade prior or so and said the way his memory worked changed shortly afterwards.
[1] The worst case I recall was a $500-$600 memory upgrade kit for an Compaq laptop that was fat fingered, resulting in the generic being rung up. It had an identical description but was half the price. A few days after inventory was done, they traced it back to a single customer who bought every one we had in stock in one transaction. The customer probably knew the price was way too good and decided to buy them all as a result (it's unlikely even he knew it was a cashier error since the product looked right on the receipt).
Well, I am not that familiar with it, but given how much attention they gave to optimizing this, my best guess would be that they made sure that similar products didn't get similar codes. And I guess for a grocery store, mistakes aren't that big a problem, especially for ones that mostly don't sell anything but their own brands (and thus normally don't have all that many similar products at different prices anyway).
Also, yes, the rumor always was that Aldi paid well. Presumably the savings in additional staff and space and cash registers was still worth it.
I wonder if there is some information theory paper to be written here. On one hand you want the most common products sold to have low Komogorov complexity codes (111, 123, 147, …).
Then there is the question of the distance between similar products and similar codes: is it better to have similarly priced products have similar codes, so that errors don't amount to much in the final tally, or to space out similar goods so that confusion is avoided?
Maybe there is a whole phase diagram of optimal strategies that depends on the error rate. But then again one has to have a good error model. Do errors come from mistyping or from misremembering?
Aldi cashiers were like machines. They never had to stop and look-up a product code like modern cashiers do when the barcode gets rejected. They were just hammering the codes into the registers and they matched the speed of barcode scanners.
"What the article doesn't mention: Aldi optimizing the speed of their cashiers is nothing new. The northern Aldi ("Aldi Nord") for a long time had three-digit article codes for every product that cashiers had to know by heart--which also meant that they couldn't have more than 1000 different products. In fact, that system was so efficient that they completely switched to bardcodes only in 2002 as they didn't see any advantage before that."
Hmmm ... so you could populate an Oh By Code[1] with your list of grocery codes and just give them that single code, which they could look up and parse ...
Well, provided your grocery list was not longer than 4096 characters...
The funny thing is how POS systems in the US have regressed over the past 25 years. The IBM registers I used in the early 90s were fast and accurate while slinging packages over the scanner. Nowadays everything is laggy and needs special care to present the UPC to the machine just so. That is except for Aldi's systems.
This is so true. I worked as a supermarket checkout operator at a large Australian chain of supermarkets for a few years, and the PoS systems were redone while I was there. Before were old Fujitsu machines running an old version of OS/2 with mechanical keyboards. After overhaul, Windows xp embedded machines with touch screens. The touch screens were a massive step backwards, especially when it came to punching in produce codes (many of which I can still remember today).
That and the 'express' lanes being physically smaller used a different, smaller model of scanner rather than the larger scanner built into the counter. The smaller scanner, though removable which was helpful when scanning large crates of soft drinks and other heavy items (would pass the scanner to the customer so they didn't have to lift those out of the trolley) was slower and laggier for everything else and had a smaller "field of view"
The touch screens allow us (I work in backend retail) to push updates to hundreds of shops across a region without having to update those mechanical keyboards. It's a huge benefit to the industry. Before, when a new feature was added we had to send a human technician out to every one of those shops. Or get the shop managers to replace the key, or sticker the key. You can see how much easier it is to push updates over a network compared to the alternatives.
As for scanners, they vary a lot in design and intended purpose but with some optimization and testing they are are always better than the emerging tech for scanning items; your smartphone camera. The industry is heading toward you doing the scanning yourself (albeit in addition to the traditional shop model). Phone cameras are a pita having not been designed for this purpose. I don't see any IR scanners being available to the general smartphone market any time soon, but they do exist as 'jackets', mostly for tablets.
Makes sense. The mechanical keyboards had dedicated keys for the most common produce items, but maybe 10-20% of them were not applicable at a time due to being out of season and/or not available for some reason.
I worked in Tesco in the 00s while I was studying, and when I first started the checkouts had physical keys with some quick access keys on the side of the screen which changed depending on the context. The normal keys had a rather satisfying mechanical mechanism, where as the quick access keys just used a conductive-rubber mechanism so were a bit harder to press.
When I first started there was a menu driven by the mechanical keys so if you didn't remember produce codes, you could use this to go through everything. The systems were networked and these menus were updated regularly with seasonal products. To get to potatoes (for example) you would press Menu, Down, Down, Enter, Down, Enter and be presented with the different types of potatoes. You could even hit the keys in quick succession without waiting for the UI to update, so it was pretty quick if you knew what you were doing.
Later they changed the system to instead of being driven by the mechanical keys, to use the quick access keys. These were harder to press and you couldn't press them in quick succession - you had to wait for the UI to update before pressing them.
Just before I left they started phasing out the physical buttons, and I think all the new checkouts are touch-screen driven which I assume is even worse. Under the hook they (were anyway) running Windows XP, and the same software.
I've noticed this as well. I worked as a grocery store checker in college, and was consistently one of the most efficient in the store. Yet now when I use self-checkout machines I feel like I'm fighting them every step of the way. Yes, I scanned the item. Yes, I put it in the bag. No seriously, it's in the goddamn bag.
In the UK these machines are notoriously inefficient especially with situations like you describe and also when you are buying alcohol or something they consider dangerous.
In Spain however I've noticed they get around this by having one person with remote access to every machine, so if there is problem with your bag or they need to verify your age it's all done from one point rather than an individual member of staff having to intervene in each case.
Right with you there. I got into the habit of having both hands going independently scanning items two at a time. The self-checkouts, which only allow one item to be picked up, scanned and placed in the bag at a time, are therefore infuriatingly slow.
So true it hurts. My go-to grocery recently downgraded to the CC chip customer-facing-POS. I used to be able to swipe my card ahead of time and generally be on my way within about 6 seconds of the last item being scanned. Now the system has no pre-swipe ability and far more lag. Like, the first few times I used it I messed up and hit wrong buttons because there was ~1000ms of lag. It works sorta-alright if you use the CC chip, but it's trash otherwise.
I just don't understand how that big of a fuck-up is possible; they were clearly losing money with much longer lines. Everyone complained about it, and I know I don't make quick stops anymore because it's too much hassle.
The part that really upsets me about how the US is doing chip-and-pin is that they're missing the pin part. Someone can still steal my wallet or card and use it without anything else. It provides very little additional security while adding more complexity, expense to merchants (which they'll pass on to customers), and much worse UX.
It's so rare here I can't think of another time I've seen it. I've always wondered why: comfortable people tend to be less grumpy and the typical cashier job involves "not leaving a very small space for a long period of time". This small space is about the size of ... a chair.
I think the perception of people standing in line is more likely to make them feel that the cashier is working slower because they're sitting[1]. Aldi's lightning quick cashiers would prove that wrong, but perception tends to be all that matters in these scenarios.
[1] People routinely over-estimate their waiting times in situations like this. This became apparent to me when talking to the helpdesk manager at my old company. He would get an e-mail from time to time from a person complaining that they were on hold for "20 minutes". The call stats for the day indicated a maximum hold time of 5 minutes.
The difference is probably the combination of high footfall and continuous restocking in food shops, which results in role specialisation and hence a more static workforce where the role is static.
I actually get a little stressed when I arrive with a cart full of groceries and an empty line -- they ring them up at about twice the speed I can pull them off the cart.
The Aldi process is very well thought out. They're the only cashiers I've seen that sit in a chair while ringing things up. They needn't move, nearly at all, beyond swiping things past the register to read those giant barcodes (on anything store branded, which is most things). I remarked to the cashier about their ridiculous speed and was informed they are also tracked, directly, on their speed and have targets to meet (and incentives if they're "the fastest").
[1] Their produce is consistently good (love the sweet, small, green grapes) and their Frozen Chicken Nuggets are better tasting than any I've purchased, including the organic ones at Costco.