n case study
Implementing
thin client
architecture
at Jubilant
FoodWorks was
not as simple
as delivering a
pizza. Medley
Marketing had
to bake a perfect
recipe.
By Yogesh Gupta
Amita Sharma, Director,
Marketing, Medley Marketing (Left) &
Rahul Puri, General Manager - IT,
Jubilant FoodWorks
&Crispy
THIN
38
photograph by dr lohia
T
he year was 2005. Jubilant
FoodWorks (earlier Domino’s
Pizza India) was becoming a
defacto for food lovers across
India. The hundred plus outlets were dishing out thousands of pizzas – double burst or thin crust; as the
cash registers were brimming with brisk
business. The basic IT infrastructure
was expected to perform with perfection to support this growth. However,
the standard desktop setup of 5 to 6 PCs
per location proved to be a bottleneck.
The IT team was spending good
amount of time supporting desktop
breakdowns. “Apart from productivity loss, it was difficult to repair the
desktop in the store environment due to
limited space,” says Rahul Puri, General
Manager - IT, Jubilant FoodWorks. As
outlets multiplied, the management
was conscious to keep the IT budgets
optimized but ensure agile business
productivity. We wanted IT to deliver
much more than just provide basic
desktop support, adds Puri.
That’s when Delhi-based Medley
Marketing specializing into IP based
technologies advocated thin client architecture (instead of PCs) at
Jubilant FoodWorks.
Preparing the Dough
An engineer at Medley introduced
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VXL thin clients to Jubilant FoodWorks on a marketing call. Thin Client
was not popular then, recalls Amita
Sharma, Director – Marketing, Medley Marketing. After few visits, the
customer got interested in the product
pitch. Puri emphasizes, “There needs
to be a well planned trial and testing
when we introduce new technology to
the business, first at the corporate office and then couple of outlets.”
Four brands of thin clients were tested for their product and related service
support. Finally, VXL and one other
brand were short listed for final POC.
Though thin client was billed as a solution, it wasn’t as easy a deployment as
baking a thin crust pizza.
“The rugged environment for terminal PCs near a hot oven and flour area
meant a need for a sturdy thin client,”
says Puri. For Medley Marketing, this
seemed much more than a routine thin
client replacing desktop project.
Snapshot
Client: Jubilant Foodworks (Domino’s)
Locations: 339 +
Implementation time : 12 months
Project Cost: Approx. Rs. 3 Crore
Key Products: Thin Client &
Peripherals
Number of Thin Clients: 1750 +
Key Vendor: VXL Instruments
Main Activities: Desktop replacement
with Thin Clients, POC, Software
Integration, SLA for delivery & support
Post Implementation ROI: Hardware
capex reduced by 60 percent, Less
Opex, Lower software license cost,
Less down time, Greener IT
Extra Toppings
During POC, both models – Windows
and Linux-based were tested. Linux
had the obvious advantage of saving
on license fee and configuration costs.
The Jubilant IT team wanted the best
of both. “We wanted to standardize on Linux environment and still
ensure a familiar, fast, and easy to
use interface,” says Puri. This was
an exigent task for both Jubilant and
Medley teams.
When the switch was made from
Windows CE to Linux, the order form
opened quite slowly. Windows CE
model had a better option for bit map
caching. Medley conducted debugging
and engaged with VXL technical team.
After two months, a special ‘bit map
caching’ feature for Linux was created.
Cost went down by almost 8 to10
percent per thin client using this
tweaked Linux model, says Puri. Few
problems with settings like user accidentally deleting the pre-defined connections was resolved by restricting
default settings by putting password in
the thin client setup, says Sharma.
Overheating Issue
After a couple of months, another
dilemma cropped up. Cooling in a
furnace like operating environment at
Domino’s led to the thin clients behav-
ing erratically. This meant thin clients
with external power supply were ineffective. Medley proposed a thin client
with internal power supply. This new
model was better suited as it reduced
one external failure component, agrees
Puri. It was tested across six branches
across Delhi.
After the power issue was solved,
the fan in the thin client was creating
chaos in a flour filled environment.
A fan less design was needed to ensure that the machine didn’t pull in
dust from the external environment,
especially in a production area. Most
brands could not give a fan less model.
Medley approached VXL team to
introduce a fan less product with no
moving parts.
Delivery on time
Finally the model was decided after a
six month long POC. The initial order
of hundred odd thin clients were installed successfully across Domino’s.
But Medley faced a major challenge.
Sharma says, “There is a three weeks
delivery procedure after an order is
placed with VXL, while customer gave
us a week’s delivery notice. ”
With outlets opening fast and thin
clients becoming standardized, this
was a tough task. Medley maintained
an inventory of 20 to 30 systems
(complete with monitor, keyboard and
mouse) at all times to avoid any
delivery delays.
The end customer was forced to take
systems from other vendor. “That was
a one -off order but we streamlined the
delivery and the customer is procuring
from us since 4 years,” adds Sharma.
The great Taste
With a series of tweaks in hardware
and software over a 12 month POC,
Medley Marketing found the right
formula. “We had to offer the latest
technology without much increase
in contract rate,” says Akshay Kumar
Sharma, Director – Technology Solutions Group, Medley Marketing.
The benefits of thin client architecture
are evident as Puri at Jubilant FoodWorks says, “Capex spent on desktops
went down by almost 45 percent and
the service support calls have reduced
drastically.” Besides, the major difficulty
of repairing desktops at outlets has been
eliminated to a great extent,” says Puri.
The initial small order for Medley has
today rocketed to 1700 plus thin clients
across 339 locations in India. Medley is
maintaining SLAs for timely delivery,
support, and logistics. “Spending so
much time and resources during POC
was a concern, but we were confident of
providing the solution demanded by the
customer,” adds Sharma.
On the menu
A year ago, Jubilant team was keen for
handhelds to offer better service to
customers waiting in long queues at
outlets. “There was a clear directive
for a solution which is easy to deploy,
scalable, and independent of frequent
software updates. New software would
also mean software AMC overheads,”
says Puri. Such product was not easily
available in the market, recalls Amita
Sharma. Medley Marketing sourced a
special 4.6 inch LCD device and a Zebra printer supporting OPOS technology. There was a trial run of 10 handhelds at few outlets.
More handhelds are planned across
various locations. “Twice a year, we
do challenging work at Jubilant FoodWorks. You never know when a small
project becomes a big project at a customer end,” says Amita Sharma. 
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