RGIS Inventory Specialists

RGIS LLC., originally named Retail Grocery Inventory Service, is a company specializing in performing inventory services in 3 continents around the world.

Company history

1958–1969

The company was founded in 1958 by Thomas J. Nicholson, who created a cost effective inventory taking service for grocery stores who traditionally had in-house inventory service. Nicholson moved the company headquarters from their family's residence to an office in Detroit, Michigan in 1959.

By 1960, there were 2 districts in Michigan. A year later, a district opened up for the first time outside Michigan, the first district in Illinois. 3 years later in 1966, a district became active in Wisconsin.

From 1963 to 1969, RGIS also started be noticed nationally. Ohio, Louisiana, Minnesota and Indiana all got their own offices in that period. During that time period, RGIS also went international by opening up an office in Canada.

1970–1979

The 1970s brought change to then named Retail Grocery Inventory Service. The company was no longer doing inventory for grocery stores; they expanded into store formats such as department stores. Therefore, the company was changed to RGIS Inventory Specialists, reflecting the change. Store managers started to refer to the company as "Regis" because of the four letter acronym.

The 1970s brought up the districts to a count of 92. Offices were added were Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Alabama, New York, Washington DC, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Alaska, Kentucky, Arizona, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Maine, Quebec, Virginia, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and South Dakota in chronological order.

Also during the 1970s, RGIS moved headquarters again to Rochester Hills, MI. They also put "mini computers" in every office, as well as introducing electronic inventory taking systems using first the SCM scientific calculator, then a custom designed TJN (for founder Thomas J. Nicholson) calcuator.

1980–1990

The 1980s, much like previous decade had big growth for RGIS. They were adding 10 offices a year, creating 200 new offices that decade. Offices were created in Vermont, Hawaii, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Delaware, Nevada, Idaho, and Alberta.

A new series of electronic inventory taking devices were introduced in the 1980s, the A-series Audit Microcomputer. The "machines" as they are called by RGIS employees are made by AST Technology (not to be confused with AST Computers) and feature a two line LCD Display, a keypad, one male RS-232 serial port, one female RS-422 serial port, and operate on eight AA-size batteries. There were six different versions of the device, A1 through A6 during the 1980s with many improvements such as the capability to connect a barcode scanner.

RGIS also changed its logo to the one used today during the 1980s and moved headquarters to a brand new building in Rochester, MI.

1990–1999

During the 1990s, RGIS added an office to Mexico and also kept with the growing information age in the 1990s. Offices were also opened in Alberta and British Columbia for the first time. The Audit machines were at the 12th revision by the end of the decade. Wireless-based audit machines were created in the decade, as well as the RAY2000 Inventory system which is still used by today.

2000–present

By the year 2000, RGIS started to expand into Europe. There were offices in the UK, Germany, France, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Offices, were also added in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. In 2007 they expanded to Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore.

The RGIS Headquarters, or, as it was renamed in February 2006, the "Field Support Center", is now located in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

Customers of RGIS

The largest customer of RGIS is Wal-Mart Corporation of Bentonville, Arkansas. When Wal-Mart acquired the ASDA store chain in the UK, RGIS set up offices in the UK among other European nations to handle the new accounts.

RGIS' other national customers include stores such as The Home Depot , Circuit City, Sears, Kmart, Borders Books, OfficeMax, Office Depot, and the Gap.

Controversy

Employee Turnover- RGIS has suffered tremendous employee turnover, especially from Area Managers. This is largely due to managers on salary getting burned out by being forced to work extensive overtime combined with driving hundreds of miles across a district territory. This historically was and continues to be a frequent occurrence for managers working in districts in upper Midwest states. Managers reportedly have been forced to work 80+ hour weeks on a regular basis to as much as 120 hours in a single week. This would occur during the time known as "year-end" in the 3-4 weeks immediately following Christmas. Despite being provided with health benefits, the modest salary, when factored into the amount of hours dedicated toward work-related efforts, would sometimes average a sum less than the federal minimum wage because no additional compensation is paid for overtime. Although individual districts have lost some talented and hard-working employees and managers, there currently are no plans at Headquarters for overall organizational reform to retain some of the company's most valuable human capital. Ridiculous and very poor working conditions in the U.K. You are asked to meet at 8am on some days travel to the store and arrive at the store at 9am. You have to wait around till 10am and this is when your pay starts, so basicly you've been doing nothing for 2 hours. Then you work for about 4 hours paid work and then take a 2 hour break WITHOUT PAY. You then work for an average another 4 hours and then finish your job and be home for about 9 or 10pm. So in total on average you have been out of your house for roughly 13 or 14 hours and you only get paid for 8. Im sure you have other things to do with your lives in the other unpaid 6 or 7 hours.

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