Meijer is a private grocery and general merchandise retailer with 152 stores in five Midwestern states. It is undergoing an information system (IS) restructuring that includes centralizing servers, deploying thinner clients at store sites, and creating a new Web-based communication portal. Technological management of new and existing stores will be controlled from headquarters, providing the company with a more efficient and cost-effective IS structure. The new system has allowed Meijer’s training group to rethink its CD-ROM-distributed, computer-based training program and to initiate a streaming media pilot project. Two stores are successfully taking advantage of the pilot, and, following launch of the new IS initiative, all employees will receive streaming media-based training. Streaming distribution of training content provides significant benefits to individual stores and the enterprise, including reducing the time it takes to produce and distribute new training content by nearly a month.


Situation

With an employee base of more than 80,000, Meijer is a grocery and general merchandise retailer in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. The company began 60 years ago as a single-outlet, family-run grocery store. Today Meijer operates 152 stores, each averaging over 200,000 square feet. All store managers and employees, or team leaders and members, take part in a computer-based training (CBT) process to ensure member preparedness and a consistent customer experience from store to store. The Meijer training department produces and updates nearly 100 courses that range from proper grocery bagging technique to correct usage of computer equipment to improving communication and time management skills. CBT courses and tests are interactive and include text, video, audio, animation, and graphics. Currently they are delivered on CD-ROM and accessed by team members from multimedia workstations located in a learning center in each outlet.

Maintaining and upgrading software, workstations, and servers at the dispersed store locations is very time consuming and expensive for Meijer. To reduce the technological cost of opening new stores and running existing outlets, the company is moving to a centralized Web-based information system that will allow it to eliminate store servers, install thinner clients at the stores, and maintain software from headquarters. The training groups current distribution process is deeply affected by the changesparticularly the loss of a CD-ROM drive on the new clients. To meet the demands of the new system and evaluate its own opportunity to create efficiencies, the group is spearheading a Microsoft® Windows Media® pilot project at two Meijer stores.

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Solution

As the first step in its streaming media pilot, Meijer installed a Windows Media server at its headquarters, loaded it with Microsoft Windows® 2000, and emulated 175 stores with five workstations each running Windows Media Player 6.4. Microsoft Consulting Services took part in the proof of concept by providing architecture and initial testing guidance. The new, centralized streaming server easily handled distribution of on-demand unicast content to the emulated stores, enabling the training group to begin its own on-site user testing.

All existing training content is now converted to streaming media files and accessed by participating team members through an easy point-and-click Web portal. New and updated training content is instantly available to those taking part in the test. Plans are in place to expand the streaming media-based training system to all Meijer stores, and a seamless, full deployment will follow completion of the new Web-based information system during the first quarter of 2002. When asked if he would like to implement a full Windows Media training deployment, Chris Laske, Meijers multimedia development manager, said, "Once we completed the proof of concept and the pilot was up and running, we realized that we wanted all of our stores taking advantage of streaming media-based training—yesterday."

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Benefits

The most notable benefit the training group has derived from its streaming pilot program is a great savings in time from course creation to distribution. Meijer expects to save nearly one month per course with the centralized streaming system over CD-ROM distribution. The successful pilot shows that the current lag timecaused by CD-ROM mastering and testing, artwork creation and approval, and a lengthy, third-party CD-ROM fulfillment processcan be eliminated and courseware distribution made nearly instantaneous. The significant time savings should also enable Meijer to release quick courseware enhancements and updates, which, until now, have been cost prohibitive.

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© 2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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