We had a similar problem – not shrinkage but excessive damage – at a national US trucking firm with tens of thousands of devices. They tried many ways to mitigate the damage (mainly training users) but still experienced a very large amount of excessive damage. The one method they finally settled on was to have a device manager at each facility check-in and out all devices. The users were made aware that they were ultimately responsible for loss or damage of the device. The check-in and out process noted the user name/ID, condition of the terminal, date and time. For this customer, the more conscientious the users were to keep control of their terminal and take good care of it, the damages dropped significantly.

All of the large retailers I deal with in Australia have the same issue. No real successful solution has been put in place to overcome this. This is mainly due to the cost, and short of having the units on a chain, even the most complex system will not fully resolve this issue. For what it is worth, I have attached a document I did years ago that started to tackl this issue - I was going to work on this more, but the customer chose to put it on the back burner.  On the bright side, we keep receiving orders to replace lost units.

an application that is designed not to allow sign off but always to demand an authorized sign ON can be used like this... - users are trained that they are responsible for devices they check out (if you are not going to enforce, don't start) - currently unused devices are kept in a secure location, and the current or last user is either a particular person associated with the secure storage location, or a pseudo-user for secure storage - devices are "issued" to users by handing the device to a user, allowing him to log in, but not allowing him to leave with the device until he shows the issuer a screen that confirms he has logged on with his own user ID, so the that issuer / device store is no longer responsible for the device - the last logged on person is responsible for the unit. period. - if a user wants to be relieved of the responsibility for the unit, he must get someone else to log in and show him they have done so, taking the responsibility for the device. This can be another user or the secure storage area.  A no-logoff application may be created just for doing this, or an existing one modified - adds to expense. the application must have a reliable record of who logged on and when. It's a pain to implement, it's a pain to run, with check in and check out requirement to log on or get someone else to do so to relieve you - but it works. We don't sell it. I don't know anyone who does, so probably have to build it into the existing application. - - - - - - - - One other idea for discouraging theft - if the units are clearly the property of a particular store or business, it makes theft more obvious and makes disposal of stolen property more difficult. Many of our devices allow a custom spash screen to be installed by and OS Update program. If your customer's units allow this, installation of a custom splash sceen that clearly declares the unit is company property should help deter theft (I have no statistics to measure impact - if you do this with your customer, please see if you can get before/after stats).

Tom / Larry, These are all great thoughts.... We've discussed some of these ideas with them... They are not a current MSP customer (legacy Airbeam user) but we are working on changing that... One of the problems with programmatic solutions is that if the unit is turned off or the battery is pulled at the time the unit walks out the door, the customer won't know until it is too late... Plus, it isn't too hard for someone with some technical know-how to re-image a device back to factory defaults for sale on the secondary market... It is often the case that a customer will 'trouble' a store associate for help which has the store associate putting the MC9000 down and walking away from it for a minute or two... They come back and its gone... I guess the customers theft/loss does generate on-going sales/revenue for MSI.... Efrem

Hi Efrem, Another option is our friends over in New England, Optical Phusion. They can embed an RFID chip in the handle and a very loud alarm will sound if it tries to get near or through the exit doors. Paul.

Thanks Keith IJ

One of my smaller retail customers is reporting at least a 10%-12% annual loss of their MC9090s... They are not sure if this is an 'inside' job or possibly organized crime given the inherent value of a MC9090.... They are exploring different ways to make local associate accountability a reality but are having difficulty implementing something chain wide... They have considered the following; - A sign in / sign out system with the store manager holding the MUs under lock and key - RFID portals at the front door that will alarm if a MU goes past it - Associate to provide their Drivers License in exchange for a MU during their use Anyone have any creative suggestions??? Efrem Robinson

There are a number of ways that I can think of. Use a lock down application that will lock down the terminal when a certain condition in not met.  Actual condition would depend on how they have their system set up.  Some conditions I can think of are: 1)  no association to a company AP for over 1 hour 2)  communication access to a company server 3) When a secret (manager only) barcode is not scanned for a certain period of time (1 week?)

In Stores 10-12% is average for my 3 retailers. The DC's are much lower, 2% or less, but they are using Truck Mount and Wearables. Not sure how you those go, "Missing", but they do.