15/07/11

By Karen Moss

Pizza Hut franchisee, Rage, Inc. has rolled out fingerprint technology at 118 restaurants throughout the US to reduce employee theft. By deploying fingerprint biometrics as a part of the company's Speedline Point-of-Sale (PoS) systems, the Pizza Hut restaurants have improved employee accountability, reduced unauthorised discounts and decreased payroll fraud.

The company chose to install U.are.U Fingerprint readers from DigitalPersona in franchises in South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Prior to using biometrics, Rage’s Pizza Hut store managers used ID numbers to authorise discounts, overrides and voids. Employees also had their own ID numbers to clock in and out of the payroll system.

Because managers are often required to handle multiple requests at the same time, they would share authorisation credentials with employees to prevent delays in customer service. Unfortunately, this practice frequently led to fraudulent discounts, causing cash register shrink.

Furthermore, some employees were also buddy-punching, clocking in co-workers who weren’t actually working.

“DigitalPersona U.are.U Fingerprint Readers have provided us with a fast and simple way to reduce inventory shrink and eliminate payroll fraud,” said David Logsdon, director of MIS at Rage, Inc. “This has led to improved revenues across all of our locations.”

DigitalPersona claims its U.are.U Fingerprint Readers have been integrated into more than 90 percent of the biometric PoS terminals in the US and are supported by a variety of commercial PoS applications.