ECMS

The ECMS, Entertainment Center Management System provides for an all encompassing management system for businesses in the entertainment center industry such as billiard and karaoke, golf centers, restaurant and bar and newly emerging businesses within this sector such as personal care, tanning, fitness and spa services.

Businesses with a time keeping and charge for time requirement, power control to room and device management and membership, space rental requirements in addition to the standard features typical of a food and beverage establishment can make use of the ECMS System. The personal professional services industry is also a newly emerging industry with charge for time requirements based upon new consumer demand for such things as spa, beauty and personal care and upkeep services such as tanning and other such treatment services where facilities are charged based on customer use or purchased in advance in blocks and taken down across a period of time.

The key to the success of the ECMS System is in our ability to provide for extremely simple use, fast transaction completion, separation of management setup versus employee usage of the system and power and lighting control for assurance of computer booking of the facilities amenities, such as lights above a table, power to a room, power to a tanning bed and so on.

Although it can be envisioned that an employee free environment can be accomplished with the ECMS System, it was actually developed with the concept of a management free environment whereby management personnel could effectively manage multiple locations with minimal staff.

The ECMS System provides an all encompassing management application for your entertainment facility or your personal professional services establishment.

When we set out to design the ECMS system it was originally with the vision of replacing analog/digital time clock device equipment with a computer and program that could perform the same tasks with readily available equipment plus all of the management capabilities one would hope to find in a computer application, such as reporting, receipt printing, the management of customer information and inventory information.

We didn’t really realize the many different types of establishments that would eventually make use of our system until we found customers in the food and beverage, karaoke and gold center and golf dome industries knocking on our door. This lead us to a more robust solution offering that could accommodate such new facilities, multiple computer stations and a central data repository or server as well as the ability to control power flow to lights and equipment which controls the use of the facilities amenities.

With features that support the low and high end user, such as stop-after for children entering an entertainment facility with a limited budget where they can request that the establishment turn off the lights or equipment after a certain amount of money has been spent or the memberships and membership loyalty features one would expect of a higher end establishment such as a spa or beauty/wellness establishment, our ECMS System is poised to take on your new entertainment or personal professional services establishment business challenges.

ECMS, can manage any number of amenities in your facility, allows you to layout the units on the screen or multiple screens as you see fit and could only be easier to use if you didn’t need to use it at all. The rental rate controls are in depth and flexible allowing management to set rates based on days of the week, time of day, customer classification, type of rental unit or amenity (room, device, table, etc). The entire rating system is automated allowing for operators to book in and out transactions, acquire new customers and deal with the necessary parts of the business, leaving management to set the tone for the business at the top level. Even sundry item sales and inventory items sales have a five level pricing scheme that can be applied for management prescribed pricing without operator intervention required.

The system has been designed with control for the owner, peace of mind for the staff and simplicity and speed to the customer.

Since many establishments offer a multitude of services, we have provided for customer freedom within your facility by allowing customers to move from one amenity to the next without need of tally or cash/checkout, once they are done they can get a final tally for their visit, which can include movement from entertainment, personal care/wellness, bar and restaurant or any other such service category you have to offer or add to your mix.

The ECMS System supports control of equipment and amenities through the integration of computer controlled power and lighting which allows for the use of the facility to be controlled by a computer interface that is integrated with the billing and charge to the consumer. This ensures that the customer is charged for their use, can visually confirm this and also provides management with the peace of mind required for any business where owner and management presence would otherwise be required on a full time basis.

ECMS achieves this with support for three control technologies based on customer requirements and/or the dynamics of the entertainment facility which is very important for pre-existing facilities with an established infrastructure where changes would prove cost prohibitive.

Programmable Logic Controllers such as the IDEC PLC or MITSUBISHI PLC are supported by the ECMS System where the power is directly wired to the device and a single unpowered communications cable is connected to the ECMS Computer Terminal which tells the PLC what to do. The IDEC PLC was supported for reduced cost environments where the requirement was under 50 units with normal power consumption rates. The MITSUBISHI PLC was supported for environments that exceeded that specification and cost was less significant an issue due to the size of the establishment or the types of equipment and amenities supported.

For pre-existing environment where wiring would not be a cost effective solution for implementation of the ECMS system or power and lighting control, the X10 Powerhouse technology was supported. This technology provides to communication of on/off controls over the power line. Each module is keyed with a letter/number combination and associated with the rental device or amenity and subsequently is controlled by a communications X10 Module that is attached to the ECMS Computer Terminal.

Effectively providing for inventory control of the service offerings that are not inventory centric is the concept behind the integration of power control and the ECMS System. Although not a revolutionary idea, the concept works well in business models that require a level of oversight that would otherwise require monitoring or the presence of management and ownership.

Having implemented projects that exceeded 50 units and power requirements above standard specifications, the ECMS System has proven to be reliable, stable and easy to implement and use in such high demand and round the clock establishments.

Controlling the facility provides for control of the business, an environmentally sound and good management business practice all the way around.