Consol Glass Point of Sale with GuiXT and SAP

RANDBURG, South Africa, Nov. 2, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Linx/AS Africa is pleased to announce the implementation of the ConSales POS (Point of Sale) Solution at the Consol Shop in Woodmead, Sandton. Consol Shop is the retail outlet for Consol Glass, the leading consumer glass packaging company in Southern Africa and a well known brand in South Africa for many years. The ConSales POS Solution was developed using the GuiXT WS Solution Suite. With the new ConSales POS the Woodmead based Consol Shop will transact on SAP in real time when assisting customers buying a wide range of glass wares.

The project development was done by Linx/AS Africa, the sole provider of GuiXT WS Solutions and Services to the SAP market in Africa. Comments Johan du Plessis, Consol Glass CIO, "With GuiXT we were able to consolidate three disparate systems into a single integrated point of sale and back office system. This gives Consol Glass the ability to not only serve our shop customers quickly and efficiently but to also maintain management and financial control through our established SAP business and reporting system."

The ConSales POS Solution provides for the full range of POS functionality. With all of the required transactions and functionality available in SAP, strong emphasis was placed on delivering a solution that will be fast at the customer facing shop front, accurate on making available real time information on products on sale and availability of stock and lastly, ease of use for the Sales Assistants working with customers. Apart from providing for these requirements, ConSales POS also had to deliver on a range of Back Office Functions. These include the registration of new materials, applying pricing to new products and changing existing pricing, creating purchase orders and many more. In addition, development and implementation had to be completed within a 12 week period. All of these were achieved and, comments Johan du Plessis further, "Although there were many obstacles to overcome with the product, I was impressed with the time taken to develop the system from scratch and the ultimate end product."

Consol Shop in Woodmead operates in a highly competitive market that requires accurate information on products and stock availability. Customer service is the number one priority. Having accurate information on products and available stock at hand helps the Sales Assistants in achieving this objective. Bernadette Valentine, Manager of Consol Shop in Woodmead states that the change to ConSales POS again highlighted the importance of accurate information. She continues, "The ConSales POS System handles the sales to the consumer with the Back Office Systems handling other functions such as inventory control, purchasing, receiving and transferring of products to and from other locations. One of the key elements is that it stores sales information for reporting purposes, sales trends and cost/price/profit analysis. The customer information can be stored to assist with receivables management and specific buying analysis."

The ConSales POS Solution was developed using the GuiXT WS Solution Suite. GuiXT is bundled with the SAP software and is delivered to all SAP customers. With the GuiXT WS Solution Suite, SAP customers can deliver simplified and streamlined SAP business processes on a variety of platforms. These include the SAP Desktop, SAP Portal, Windows based mobile devices and to smart phones like the iPhone and Blackberry. Linx/AS Africa is the sole provider of GuiXT Solutions in Southern Africa. Comments Linx/AS Director Werner Simpson, "We are really pleased with the outcome of the ConSales POS project. Apart from delivering a world class solution within a very tight time frame, we have also proven that our customers can save huge amounts of money by using technology they already own. Tightly embedded and bundled with SAP, GuiXT impacts the entire business and makes the use of SAP easier for all, from the CEO to the plant operator or customer services assistant responsible for plant maintenance work orders or quality notifications."

About Consol Glass

Consol Glass is the largest glass manufacturer in South Africa and through service excellence, quality and product innovation is able to deliver world class packaging solutions. The group, now over 65 years old, is responsible for supply to over 75% of the glass packaging market. Customers in the Consol stable include blue chip clients from a variety of industries, including food and beverage market, as well as the cosmetic, pharmaceutical and tableware industries. The company is committed to recycling and heavily involved with the Glass Recycling Company. A significant player in the world of glass packaging. Consol is synonymous with glass excellence internationally. For further information, visit www.consol.co.za

About Linx/AS Africa

Linx/AS Africa is part of the Linx/AS LLC organization. Linx/AS is a leading product life cycle management (PLM) and regulatory & compliance consulting firm that provides: strategic planning through a proprietary Vision™ Methodology; expert SAP Integration Services; SAP certified product innovations; hands-on-training; and SAP usability solutions with the GuiXT WS Solution Suite. Linx/AS has successfully helped small- to mid-sized business up to Global 2000 companies to accelerate product speed to market while effectively reducing regulatory and compliance challenges. Linx/AS experience spans verticals, helping chemicals, consumer products, high-tech, oil & gas, manufacturing, process industries and life sciences companies maximize their ROI in SAP technology and lower the TCO for IT organizations. For more information, visit www.linxas.com

SOURCE Linx/AS