A MULTIMEDIA SOLUTION TO PRODUCTIVITY GRIDLOCK - A RE-ENGINEERED JEWELRY APPRAISAL SYSTEM AT ZALE-CORPORATION

Zale Corporation once melted down most of its damaged, returned, or re possessed jewelry, resulting in substantial lost revenues. It was dete rmined that additional revenue could be produced from salvageable jewe lry if the value of the items could be accurately determined. This mea nt the jewelry had to be appraised by experienced gemologists to deter mine the most profitable disposition. The gemologists' productivity su ffered because the appraisal was extremely labor intensive. To address this problem, an automated multimedia system utilizing electronically linked measuring instruments, voice recognition, and interconnected L AN databases was developed, Although the unique voice recognition feat ure of the system was later abandoned, the use of the system enhanced productivity. This paper describes the systems development, its subseq uent evolution, and the lessons learned from the process.