Foodland’s QueVision Screen

As I was grocery shopping with the wife the other day, I noticed a flat-screen monitor situated near the front entrance of the Beretania Street Foodland Supermarket. It had three circles with numbers in the middle of each.

It’s called QueVision, with military infrared cameras above store entrances and cash registers. The circle on the left tells the employees (and customers as well) how many checkout lanes are currently open. Then in the right-side circle, an estimate of how many will be needed in the next 30 minutes is shown.

I think the large center circle lets you know how many of the checkouts are currently being used (I couldn't find any information on the Web on this one). The goal is, of course, to reduce the amount of time customers have to wait at the checkout counter.

I did some research, and it seems that checkout people at some mainland supermarkets aren’t very happy with it because it instills panic in the store managers and pulls employees away from their other duties.

I wonder how Foodland’s checkout employees feel about the system. I’ll ask some the next time I’m there.