AUN alumni develop POS software for cafeterias

TWO alumni of the American University of Nigeria (AUN) Yola, Messrs Ogbonnaya Kalu and Luke Dalughut, have developed cafeteria management application on Point-of-Sale (POS) code named ‘Cafeteria Manager.’

This, they said would be useful in schools, universities, hospitals, and all the places where meals are prepaid and served in large numbers.

Kalu, a graduate of the School of Information Technology & Communications, in collaboration with Luke Dalughut, a Business Economics major, both from the same, said their tested point-of-sale (POS) software, could be customized to aid in accurate, instantaneous and hassle-free recording of cafeteria transactions.

Confirming this to ITRealms Online, Deputy Director, Communications, AUN, Mr. Innocent Nwobodo, said the software has a video-display terminal that could track individual transactions at the cafeteria and deduct a single meal from each student’s prepaid meal plan.

He also said that the application – Cafeteria Manager, is currently in use at the AUN cafeteria and is ready for commercial deployment soon.

Mr. Nwobodo quoted Mr. Kalu, a 2009 graduate as expressing pleasure with the achievement.

“It’s the first of its kind from my company’s perspective,” he declared, stressing that the software, known as AUN Cafeteria Manager, eliminates possibilities of forgery and record manipulation while it provides an effective monitoring system for all cafeteria activities.

Mr. Kalu is the chief executive officer, Hit-d-wave Technology Services Limited, a company he established after graduating from AUN. He is also a graduate of “Information Systems with Network Security” at the Cleveland Institute of Electronics in the United States (US).

The collaborator in the project and another 2009 graduate of AUN, Mr. Dalughut brings his knowledge of business practice to the project, saying it would help Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) known for managing such business like cafeteria.

“It is custom-designed to deduct a single meal from a student’s meal plan when used at the cafeteria,” he said.

Dalughut outlined some of the features of the software to include incorporation of the ability to display the total meals served during a particular mealtime, and an instantaneous counting mechanism.

“As students swipe their cards, it displays the owner’s portrait at the point of sale, thereby ruling out fraudulent re-use of the same card by a third party, and it links every meal served to a particular student’s identity card,” he explained.

Further, Nwobodo said, this development has been a big relief to the university, even as gone are the recurring headaches associated with loss of meal tickets, students faking meal tickets, and the loss of time needed to sort and submit used meal tickets by the caterer, as well as the time-consuming process of counting and confirming the authenticity of the submitted meal tickets.

Speaking on the development, Assistant Vice-President of Finance and Budget, Mr. Francis Eze, said he was proud of the alumni’s achievement in designing and applying the software.

“We are happy at this development as we will not have to deal with printing of meal tickets, complaints arising from loss, verification of used tickets, and such other related issues.”

AUN professor of software engineering, Dr. Nwojo Agwu said, today’s technology has taken a whole lot of stress off people and this is what these alumni have demonstrated, and they have helped the university.

AUN’s programmes, Agwu said, focus on helping the development process and contributing to the betterment of society.

“We want our students to be productive, that is why our programmes are technology-driven and every student undergoes an entrepreneurial course,” he said.

Both developers of Cafeteria Manager plan to continue hone their dream to assist businesses achieve and surpass their goals by providing them with the most effective and efficient IT solutions to increase productivity.

Remmy Nweke:

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