Djanogly City Academy sought the advice of Toshiba – its existing CTC technology partner, who was able to recommend the CHIPS system, supplied by M H Systems, a specialist in supplying cashless catering and cashless vending software management solutions. In the first stage, the “Chips” cashless catering system was installed running on the stable Toshiba POS hardware and M H Systems created a link between the “Chips” software and The Academy’s own CMIS database so all record changes and new pupil’s data was automatically transferred. Phase two involved M H Systems introducing a door access control system already linked with the “Chips” catering system achieving the final goal of complete integration between the school’s MIS, cashless catering and access control systems. Students and staff now use a single interface Mifare  card to gain entry to the site and purchase items in the canteen.

The Benefits
Djanogly now has a fully integrated seamless management system enabling it to control its catering function and access to both its sites.  The canteen system offers a staggering range of services such as allowing parents to limit their child’s lunch spend per day, which can be child-specific, according to individual parent’s requirements, free school meal allowances can be automatically timed on the system ensuring that children only use their meal allowance at lunch and not break times. Staff duty meals are also managed ensuring the correct number of meals are taken and all issues regarding the VAT charged on adult meals are handled automatically. The college has taken the decision to make the restaurant totally cashless, even though the Toshiba terminals do offer the facility for either cash or card transactions. As a result, speed of service has increased to 15 meals per minute as there is no longer a need to handle cash and give change; queues have reduced noticeably in a very short time.  A huge range of reports are available such as sales, free school meals, top-ups, menu analysis and stock control, issues becoming ever more important for menu planning and wastage as the cost of meals continues to increase.

Darren Frearson, Djanogly Academy, Assistant Head, ICT Development, said, “Our collaboration with M H Systems and Toshiba has helped the Academy in its continual drive to exploit ICT to develop better, more flexible and efficient management systems that make life easier for staff and improve services to pupils and staff.”