New POS solution for SAP Arena in Mannheim

The SAP Arena is a multi-functional event hall in Mannheim with up to 15,000 seats and serves as home ground for the “Adler Mannheim” ice hockey club and the handball players of the “Rhein-Neckar Löwen”. Furthermore, the arena is known as a venue for performances of national and international artists. Thanks to the use of state-of-the-art technology, it is possible to switch from ice to stage within a few hours. However, the needs of the spectators often vary depending on this. For example, more sausage and beer is sold at an ice hockey match during catering, and more wine and baked goods at a music concert.

In order to better meet the resulting demands on the POS system, UNIORG was commissioned to implement a new POS solution, “SAP Customer Checkout” (CCO). With the help of this, all necessary SAP Arena point-of-sales requirements can be covered. This checkout software can, for example, calculate the best price for the customer (automatic best price determination), where special offers, like a 4-piece rack, must be recognized by the checkout software itself and no longer by the cashier. The key allocation can also be flexibly controlled centrally via the Customer Checkout Server. This helps with the quick adjustment when changing events. In the first step, the new system was implemented as a standalone solution. All receipt data is collected centrally on the CCO server and can be called up and evaluated (reports) at any time thanks to the SAP HANA technology used.

From the project point of view, the biggest challenge was that the implementation had to take place during the current seasons of the sports clubs as well as the concert events in between. In the end, a time window of only 3 days was available for this. At the beginning of 2017, this logistical masterpiece was achieved with the help of all those involved, starting with the installation of the cash registers, the hardware setup and test operation through to the necessary training.