Panda Restaurant Group Inc. (parent of Panda Express, Panda Inn, and Hibachi-San) has completed deployment of 3xLOGIC’s VIGIL Trends Business Intelligence software to all of its North American locations. Interface Security Systems, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, was the integrator and overall project manager for this ambitious endeavor.

Panda Express is the largest family-owned restaurant in America, with more than 2,000 stores globally, 35,000 associates and $3 billion in sales. Since it was established in 1983, Panda has steadily grown with roughly 125 stores opening each year. Privately owned and operated, the restaurant is guided by the core values of its co-founders and co-CEO, Andrew and Peggy Cherng and is dedicated to developing its team members and giving back to the community.

“As an industry leader, Panda Express’s culture sets an expectation of best-in-class results,” explained Lyle Forcum, executive director of asset protection at Panda Express. “Accordingly, we needed a state-of-the-art business intelligence solution to provide us with truly actionable information. Intelligence we can act on is central to Panda’s business strategy, which focuses on meeting high standards through continuous operational improvement.”

Starting in August 2017, 3xLOGIC and Interface Systems worked with Panda Express to customize Trends to meet the company’s unique, comprehensive needs. Interface began system deployment in QI 2018 with the first location going live in March 2018. So far Trends is deployed at 1,960 locations and has been integrated with existing Interface video surveillance and alarm systems.

“It was impressive that we were able to integrate Trends so seamlessly with existing intrusion and video systems,” said Sean Foley, senior vice president of national accounts at Interface Systems, “and the entire solution was rolled out without a single technician visiting any store.”

Unlike many retail BI implementations, the focus at Panda Restaurant Group is not solely on loss prevention, but also on tracking and improving all operations at every store. Some of the key elements of store operations that Trends enables Panda to monitor, track, and improve include: Employee development; comparing store performance; optimizing store efficiency; monitoring intrusion data; tracking cash; and custom dashboards that give an at-a-glance or drilled-down overview of an employee’s priorities and responsibilities.

“At Panda, safety and loss prevention are key priorities in executing great operations,” said Lyle Forcum, executive director of asset protection at Panda Express. “We worked with 3xLOGIC and Interface for over a year to implement a highly-customized solution to meet these priorities. Now, we have a cutting-edge tool deployed across the entire enterprise that we can all be proud of.”