ICT and airport and supermarket

2. Commercial systems

Airline companies pay to use the airport. The rate the airport charges for different facilities are calculated by ICT commercial systems. The computer programs used by commercial systems can calculate these chargers for each airline quickly and accurately.

3. Airport information systems

The ICT systems used in an airport need accurate data to perform accurate calculations. The main sources are:

• Flight information display system (FIDS)
• Flight strip recorder
• Handling agents

All this above has to be accurate and correct so that the staff and the passenger can get the right information.

4. Flight planning and control

Air traffic control is one of the most crucial aspects of an airports operation. The volume of air traffic increases each year and air traffic controllers rely on ICT to keep track of all the aircraft in the airspace above an airport as well on the ground. Computers alert the controller if a risky or inappropriate command is given. They also monitor aircraft, giving warning immediately if the aircrafts activity is outside their guidelines.

ICT and Supermarket

All aspects of business in a large supermarket are either controlled or monitored by ICT, for example:

• Stock levels/stock control
• Stock distribution
• Payroll
• Accounts
• Store planning
• Branch and product performance

ICT helps to make the life of staff and the customer easier and faster at a supermarket. There are many ways it as made the life of customers and staff trouble-free such as:

EPOS

It can run special promotions called multisavers. For a “buy three and get one free” offer the EPOS machine recognizes when a customer bought four of an item so he doesn’t charge for the fourth one.

• Bar codes – it is a unique combination of different lines and is printed in most of the products. It helps to scan the prices and the product itself.
• Stock control – keeping track of all stock in a supermarket would be impossible without ICT. EPOS constantly feeds back information to the store’s main computer, so managers can know at any time how much has been sold and how much of a line they have in stock.
• Pricing – all prices are input into the store’s main computer, so individual items do not need price labels. If the prices changes the staff just change the label which are placed on the shelves.
• Customer payment – EFTPOS (Electronic fund transfer at point of sale) allows the money transferred direct from the customer’s bank account into the store’s bank account. Each transaction done is checked by the bank. If the customer does not have enough many in the bank, the bank does not allow the purchase.

These are some ways that EPOS has helped the staff and even the customer to make their life easier and better. ICT has contributed a lot in a daily transaction at the supermarket and EPOS is just one of them.

Customer service

With a large number of customers, stores need to use ICT in it customer service department. Most people contact customer service by telephone. Interactive voice response (IVR) filters out calls that can be handled without an operator. Automatic call distribution (ACD) system routes other calls to available operators to reduce caller waiting times. Even in supermarket like Airport there is a call forecasting being made in which it shows that at what time or day there will be more calls which will vary with the operators needed.