FRAMINGHAM (02/03/2000) - Amid the crush of thousands of basketball and hockey fans, vendors of jerseys and other sports merchandise at the United Center arena in Chicago are using handheld computers linked via Oracle Corp.'s Oracle Lite to an Oracle8i database to track inventory and sales.
The $250,000 project shows how critical handheld computing has become in linking sales to inventory. The technology helps ensure that the United Center doesn't run low on coveted Michael Jordan jerseys and other products, said Joe Inzerillo, technical director at the arena, which is owned by the United Center Joint Venture in Chicago.
Handhelds with bar-code readers are used to check in merchandise to a warehouse, and handhelds are again used to record each sale a vendor makes.
Meanwhile, the back-end database is used to track inventory and will soon be linked over an extranet to allow automatic ordering of needed merchandise.
Key to linking the handhelds to the center's Oracle8i database is Oracle Lite, 50KB client/server software that resides on 50 SPT 1700 handhelds equipped with bar-code readers from Symbol Technologies Inc. in Holtsville, N.Y., Inzerillo said. The handheld runs a Palm III operating system from Palm Computing Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif.
Early Review Favorable
Oracle Lite, Oracle Corp.'s thin-client database for Java, appeared on the market last year, and analysts said the United Center seems to be one of the first customers that's willing to talk publicly about using it. Inzerillo said it was an obvious choice because the United Center has had an Oracle8i server for three years and it was already familiar with Oracle products and services.
"The Oracle Lite concept is you have reconciliation and synchronization [with the database server] built into the handheld, and that is what attracted us," Inzerillo said. "Nobody has attacked the mobile market as they have."
When the system goes wireless by next year for merchandise and food and drink sales, it will automatically work with Oracle Lite without requiring a new client software installation, said John Simon, business development manager at Braxton Butterfield Consulting Inc. in Arlington, Ill., the integrator for the United Center project.
One benefit of the handheld application is that vendors, usually rushed at breaks in the game, can complete sales by making only one or two keystrokes, without making pen inputs to the handheld, Simon said. Oracle Lite will also run on Windows CE-based handhelds if there's ever a need to switch hardware.
The handheld project was conceived last summer and only took six weeks to implement, in time for the start of the Blackhawks' hockey season and, later, the Bulls' basketball season, Inzerillo said. Simon said the quick implementation was testimony to Oracle Lite's ease of implementation.
Less than six months after the system went into use, Simon said he has seen a 200 percent annual return on investment, with the merchandise inventory cut by more than half, from $900,000 to $400,000.
Clerks use the handhelds to read bar codes on cartons shipped to a loading dock. Vendors who sell at the arena from nearly 50 booths and two stores use them to scan the bar codes of items as they're sold. The two stores use the devices to issue receipts on printers linked to the handhelds via infrared connections.
At monthly inventory time, two or three clerks can read the entire warehouse in less than three hours - a big reduction in what was previously a three-day process. The United Center is also updating its system with a Web application server from SilverStream Software Inc. in Burlington, Mass., to automatically send inventory purchase orders to suppliers via the Web, Simon said.
Analysts said they haven't seen enough installations of Oracle Lite to begin measuring sales, but they said the market is growing. Competitors involved in synchronizing handhelds to databases include Sybase Inc. in Emeryville, Calif.; Synchrologic Inc. in Alpharetta, Ga.; Puma Technology Inc. in San Jose; and Riverbed Technologies in Vienna, Va.
According to Tim Scannell, an analyst at Mobile Insights Inc. in Quincy, Mass., "A lot of people are looking at Oracle and Sybase, especially as companies investigate wireless communications."