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The Customer: A multi-national leader in kiosk development and production for the retail sector. Since its inception in the mid 1990s, this company has grown significantly and has more than 44,000 points of distribution in various retail operations around the world. Today it continues to rollout new products to market at the rate of 5,000 units a year.

Business Challenge - Since the early days of kiosk development, serial cards have played an instrumental role in integrating a variety of equipment, including receipt printers, touch screen interfaces, and internal card readers. As kiosk technology evolved, and integration requirements for units became more complex, the company was finding that the serial cards it normally used in its kiosk production were generating a number of problems that impacted the reliability of its equipment. Production of the units had to be halted until the reliability issues were resolved. Retailers – and their customers – were becoming increasingly impatient with substandard performance and wait times for repairs.

The Solution
The company needed a reliable serial connectivity product that was easy to install, and flexible to handle all the functionality required. After extensive searching, it selected a Perle 4-Port Serial Card. In addition to providing the cards, Perle worked closely with the company to develop a driver that would work transparently with the kiosk operating system as well as provide interoperability with all present and future serial-based equipment used within the units.

Productive Results
The Perle 4-Port Serial Card was installed in all new production units and rollouts were resumed according to the original production schedule. In addition, the company's technical team went into the field to retrofit the existing kiosks with the new Perle Serial Card. With the Perle 4-Port Serial Card, the kiosk supplier was able to:

• Meet the stringent reliability standards demanded by its retail customers
• Resume roll-out of units (15,000 units over the first 5 years, and a current roll-out rate of 5,000 per year)
• Have the capability and flexibility to add new self-service features to the kiosks as needs evolved
• Improve end user satisfaction through improved kiosk uptime and performance

With Perle's expertise in serial-based technology, and flexible solutions, the kiosk production company was quickly and cost-effectively able to resolve an issue that could potentially have had a negative impact on both its revenues and its reputation in the market. Converting to the Perle 4-Port Serial Card allowed it to overcome a significant operational hurdle and carry on business as usual, while meeting the growing demands of its customer base.