S I N A C T I O N 11.9 RULE-BASED SYSTEMS TACKLE EMPLOYEE SHRINK

A I S I N A C T I O N 11.9 RULE-BASED SYSTEMS TACKLE EMPLOYEE SHRINK

Innovative computer-based technologies are taking the One of the products of PLATINUM Technologies

battle against employee-related shrink (theft) to a (the parent company) is AionDS, which models and higher level. Several new applications are aimed at encapsulates retailers' business policy logic into rules, identifying dishonest personnel, who account for an Fijat explains. Each rule defines a premise and one or estimated 38 percent of retail shrink, as well as those

more resulting actions. Rules can be expressed in easy- who may simply be making errors at the point of sale.

to-understand, English-like language; this makes it eas- PLATINUM Solutions offers a rule-based system

ier for loss-prevention executives to communicate sys- that targets employee theft at the retailer's point of sale.

tem requirements to those developing rule-based

"The rules are interrelated statements or business poli- software, thus leading to more effective knowledge rep- cies governing what is allowed and what is not allowed,"

resentation and acquisition.

explains Carl Fijat, a management consultant with AionDS, and rule-based software in general, is par- PLATINUM Solutions.

ticularly valuable in isolating patterns not discernible Rule-based software can help retailers find fraud

from reading exception reports. For example, if an

patterns by collecting and storing information about employee authorizes a legitimate cash sale, signs off, incidents occurring at the point of sale and classifying then signs on under someone else's identification num- them according to the policies expressed as knowledge ber to refund the immediate sale, and then signs back in the program. For example, it can be programmed to on again as himself or herself, the system can use a rule

post "self-ringing employee" alerts when employees

to track such fraudulent activity.

ring up returns for themselves. "Excessive credit to pur-

chases" is posted when a staff member processes pur- Source: Modified and condensed from J. R. Ross, "New Rule- chases whose value exceeds a certain limit and the Based Systems Tackle Employee Shrink," Stores, Vol. 78, account being credited is labeled "in-house."

No. 8, August 1996, pp. 71-72.

T h e m a j o r l i m i t a t i o n s o f r u l e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a r e a s follows:

• C o m p l e x knowledge requires thousands of ruics. which may create difficul-

ties in using and maintaining Ihe system. • Builders like rules, so they try to force all k n o w l e d g e inlo rules rather than

look for more appropriate representations. • Systems with many rules may have a search limitation in the control pro- gram. S o m e piograms have difficulty in evaluating rule-based systems and

making inferences.

T a b l e 11.8 lists t h e m a j o r c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of rules.