Information Modelling and Retail

Jonathan Ingram, CTO 345 Holdings

Retail Information Modelling

Retail has used BIM since the early days of the 1980s. Initially it was more about the building and structure without real models of the functioning store. The images below are examples of BIM applied to Retail from then from the authors program Sonata . 345 has spent the last 6 years creating a comprehensive Retail Information Modelling system that takes this initial idea and extends that with a range of concepts. This includes AR assisted shopping and guidance, data analysis, live scanning of shelves to ensure up-to-date store layouts, automatic planogram generation, realistic stores, semiautomatic store generation, AI recognition of objects and products, comprehensive libraries of all products and numerous other features. These models are no longer static models, but are live creatures, a data machine with customer, management, and supplier interaction in a single environment.

This enables the integration of the different disciplines, research, store management, shoppers, space planning, collaboration, shelf compliance, line reviews, optimization, automatic layout and in fact, all aspects of retail. As with BIM, this removes the traditional work silos of the different disciplines working

Writing the system from scratch has enabled us (345.global) to use the latest hardware and cloud services; large (86” x 2) touch screens, wall sized displays, mobile computing and AI for product and fixture recognition to build and check store and product layout, AR webapp for shopper assistance, VR for research the live stores and cloud based extensible database, giving integrated AI, security and sharing capabilities on an epic scale. Voice and intent recognition and using hardware to produce realistic stores and products are also important.

Perhaps most importantly, it has been constructed to fit the workflow of various types of retailers and manufacturers.

The 345 retail system scales to allows thousands of stores, tens of thousands of products, with multiple annual rearrangements, for almost all of the major Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturers in the USA and currently some thousands of stores, with many thousands more stores in the pipeline. See www.345.global for a video of our capabilities

Extending the concept of Information

Modelling to fit the needs of the retail industry has created a quantum change in how retailers, their customers and suppliers coordinate, optimize, build, modify, sell and monitor their stores and their products.

With true digital twins, with modern technology and with shared models and data, the possibilities for retail as well as BIM, are profound.

“People seek change but do not want to be changed” Peter Senge said in The Fifth Discipline. An individual can be more agile and change much more quickly than an organization, and the larger the organization, the slower it is likely to change. In any event, it takes marketing to the organization to get people on board. Any change also requires human and financial resources. One of my most respected bosses once said that if I needed to ask for funding, I had not done my marketing job well enough because one should never need to ask for funds if the idea has been well sold.

There are two primary ways to accomplish change, first is through consensus of getting everyone to agree to the change. The second is through positional power, and the path to change is unilaterally decided by management. The primary success factor for either hinges on the metrics that will demonstrate actual improvement, typically dollar savings. With metrics, the organization can see, touch and feel the actual improvements that have been made, creating an environment where success can flourish.

While each approach has both positive and negatives, the critical success factor for both approaches is how long the transition lasts. Over my career, I have been blessed to participate in both approaches and have seen long-term success with each method. The positional power approach was faster to implement and remained in place likely because it had a significant independently measured benefit that withstood new management. However, the consensus process is a more equitable approach that