Wal-Mart technology shows it is more than a store
BENTONVILLE.
Ark (AI’) — Com
puter st.r*?*?ns glow
in vivid colors in
the dimly lit room
— matrix*?* of num
hers, neon maps of the United States,
sprinkler) with patterns of dots
"Can you look at your satellite earth
station and tell rne how it's going?" a
technician at a central console says into a
phone
Waiting for an answer, he ahsentmind
edlv taps a finger on a keyboard, perhaps
every four seconds, and a number on the
s( reen increases by 30 to 40 with each
tap 37.010 37.041 37.075
No, warp speed is not approaching
Atoms are not colliding.
The readout measures the real-time
speed of Wal-Mart charge-card sales this
morning, feeding in by satellite link from
stores all over the country to the compa
ny's headquarters here in the Ozark hills.
And what's colliding here are the giant
retailer's plain-folks image — central to
its sui i ess and its ultrahigb-tis.h elet -
Ironies network, which analysts say is
almost equally indispensable
In the past three years alone, Wal-Mart
has spent half of a billion dollars on tin h
nologv. CKO David Gloss says
"Tnuv've invested heavily in Its hnolo
gy. and I think wisely," said Andrew
Whinston. director of the Center for Infor
mation Systems Management Research at
the University of Texas business school
in Austin
"They have an image of being low-cost,
very down-to-earth, rural Behind it all
is a very high-tech operation. ' Whinston
said "They really don't want to project
that image to their customer base "
But at Wal-Mart headquarters here, the
techno-wizards are proud
"We can store roughly three trillion
charat ters of information on-line," Mark
S« hrnidl, a Wal-Mart vice president for
information technology and communica
tions, was saying os lie made his way
al-mg a corridor of eight-foot-high, bright
blue computers in an enormous room
surrounding the control i enter
Eight times a day. Schmidt said, shout
ing over the whir of the cooling system,
the computers tally the 1,900-plus Wal
Mnrts’ sales, item by item
Every tube of I’rell shampoo Every six
roll bag of paper towels Every T-shirt
As an item is purchased, it immediate
ly < an lie reordered Wal-Mart's comput
er megabrain sends a never-ending
They have an image of
being low-cost, very
dovm-to-earth, rural.
Behind It all Is a very
high-tech operation.’
— Andrew Whmston,
University of Texas
stream of instructions to the discounter's
high-tech hands and arms, its satellite
monitored truck fleet and its state-of-the
art distribution confers.
Some 3.000 Wal-Mart vendors can tap
into much of this information, in a coop
erative. eliminate-! he-middleman
arrangement set up by the company's late
founder. Sam Walton
Computers tucked in the back of each
Wal-Mart store and hooked to satellite
dishes outside — these are the "earth sta
tions” the technician referred to — let
store managers jump into the information
stream.
That way. Schmidt said, "They can
say. This promotion we're running down
in Albuquerque isn't doing too well But
111 Jac kson. Miss., it's blowing tho doors
out.' ”
Even department-level workers plug in
Anita Watkins, the ladies' wear manager
at the Rogers, Ark . Wal-Mart, described
using the system to ensure a steady sup
ply of a popular product.
"A Mickey Mouse T-shirt — we got it
last week, and I sold about 24 in two
days.” she said. "I called it up on the
computer and said, 'Hoy. guys, I need
more of these.' " She got them. Fast.
Every retailer monitors its inventory,
and nowadays most do so at least partly
by computer. Wal-Mart goes much fur
ther.
In 1984. the space shuttle Discovery
deployed a satellite that beams much of
this information within the Wal-Mart net
work from a geostationary orbit 22.300
miles above the equator.
Besides keeping track of every sale, ver
ifying credit cards in seconds to quicken
checkout lines, and handling payroll,
Wal-Mart's high-tech network allows for
teleconferences between headquarters
executives and the stores.
CEO Glass used it for a video talk with
store staff about a decline this spring in
Wal-Mart's perennially rising stock
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Psychic message sent
to wayward spacecraft
PHOENIX (AP) — They
breathed deeply, pushed loving
energy from their heads to their
hearts and beamed it from a
hotel conference room up to the
wayward Mars Observer.
"Anything is really possible if
we put our minds to it." former
astronaut Brian O'Leary said
after one minute of meditation
Friday during the National New
Age, Alien Agenda and Cosmic
Conspiracies Conference.
About 250 people joined in
the effort to entice the lost
space* raft into beaming signals
back to Earth. They don't know
when they can say if their exer
cise worked, although radio sig
nals could cover the distance
between Earth and Mars in less
than an hour, it's unknown how
fast psychic energy travels
O'Leary, who holds a doctor
ate in astronomy from the Uni
varsity of California at Berkeley,
went through astronaut training
in 19(>7 but dropped out when
plans to land on Mars were
scrapped.
O'Leary said he wasn't
expecting the exercise to work,
but lie figured it was worth a try
to save the $980 million mis
sion.
"It's no big deal," he said
"It's just an attempt.”
NASA lost contact with the
Mars Observer Aug. 21, just
days before it was to enter Mar
tian orbit and begin the first U S
exploration of the Red Planet in
17 years.
At the Jet Propulsion Labora
tories in Pasadena, Calif.,
spokeswoman Diane Ainsworth
had a stern "no comment" on
the exercise, although her recep
tionist giggler! as she took down
an earlier request for a call bar k
Street Faire
Sept. 29, 30 & Oct. 1
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Sept. 29th
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