Tesco is using software to stem the £3m it loses each year as a result of checkout inefficiencies.

The supermarket giant told delegates at this week's Retail Solutions conference in Birmingham that it is using a scheduling system to match staff availability to customer demand, to get more shoppers through its till lanes more quickly.

'With 79,000 front-end staff serving 18 million customers a week through 20,000 checkouts, it is all about getting the right people to serve your customers, in the right place and at the right time,' said Attila Winstanley, Tesco stores director.

The Torex Retail scheduling system, which is integrated with human resources, payroll and core operational business data, is now being rolled out beyond checkout staff.

'We have extended the system to the dot com and counters operation,' he told Computing.

The system matches available staff to the store's busiest times, enabling Tesco to meet its 'one-in-front' pledge to open another till if more than one customer is waiting in a checkout queue.

'We were meeting the one-in-front promise with 92 to 93 per cent of customers, but that meant some 80,000 customers were not receiving this service,' said Winstanley.

Since installing the scheduling system Tesco has reduced this figure to about 40,000 a week.