Power Stop For Shoppers

India's

foremost lifestyle retail store, Shoppers' Stop is today recognized as one of

the country's premier shopping destinations present across many cities. The

stores offer a complete range of apparel and lifestyle accessories from various

brands.

A resilient

infrastructure forms the backbone of an efficient business. This is especially

true of businesses front-facing customers as the infrastructure needs to be up

and running 24x7. With such customer centric businesses, the front end and back

end have to be effectively integrated to ensure smooth supply chain efficiency.

This would include integrating point of sales systems, distribution systems,

data center systems, and logistics to enable uninterrupted service to customers

walking in every minute.

At a Glance

Issue: Power Reason: Frequent power cuts and fluctuations Vendor/solution: Wipro with Emerson; Network uptime solution Benefits It offered single-phase output as against three phase output Ease of load distribution and overload capability three times greater than a three phase UPS As a result of the implementation, power fluctuations were also now taken care of without disrupting the IT infrastructure

With fifteen stores

spread across different cities, they need to house PCs, servers, routers, hubs,

barcode scanners, accessories, and communication equipments to run day-to-day

business operations. In addition, critical applications, which streamline its

supply chain, require a steady and stable power back up to ensure consistent

flow of information. Says Anil Shankar, IT manager, Shoppers' Stop, “With a

centrally networked infrastructure, the retail business cannot afford any kind

of downtime. Network uptime offers precise information related to merchandise,

logistics, online customers, and helps in reducing the turnaround time required

to take quick decisions.” A power trip for few minutes, therefore, could mean

a complete disruption in the online transaction system, point of sales systems,

distribution systems, and above all customer dissatisfaction.

An area of concern that

emerged for Shoppers' Stop was that most of the outlets in cities such as

Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Pune, and Gurgaon would face frequent power cuts

or power fluctuations. This would result in distortions, power disturbances

including spikes, surges, brownouts, and blackouts from sources, both internal

and external affecting the IT loads. Moreover, as the desktops were used for

online billing and feeding customer data, they could not afford to have any

downtime. Any loss of information would have resulted in stock outs, increased

inventor and eventually customer dissatisfaction that would hamper overall

running of the business.

Wipro, the external

facility manager for Shoppers' Stop, then zeroed on Emerson to implement a

suitable power conditioning solution. On undertaking an overall countrywide

power audit, Emerson found that the existing UPS systems installed were unsuited

to work under extreme power conditions.  So, when the input 3 Phase Power went below 360V AC the

existing UPS at Shoppers' Stop used to transfer the entire load on the battery

and discharge the batteries. After the batteries were completely discharged, the

UPS would run on bypass mode. When a UPS runs in bypass mode, it gives raw

power, which does not provide full protection. This led to the PCs, servers and

other systems dependant on the UPS coming to a grinding halt.

After identifying the

problem, Emerson offered its Network uptime solution specially devised for

working under such power conditions-the Super 400 UPS. This single phase UPS

system, offered by Emerson, is capable of working at voltages as low as 290V ac

& as high as 519 V ac. Thus, even at 300 V ac, at the input, the UPS used to

feed stabilized power from the inverter without discharging the batteries.

Hence, even in the event of power fluctuations, the UPS continues to provide

stable power without using battery and hence, better protection to

critical-application. The Emerson solution thus, ensured a more planned and

regulated sales forecasting and accelerated transaction time.

Team DQ



mail@dqindia.com