Atlanta ? The Home Depot’s do-it-yourself clientele can now do it themselves at the checkout counter as part of a technology upgrade the company promises will make for shorter lines and faster service.

The touch-screen checkout counters have been used in supermarkets since 1995, but they’ll be a first for a home-improvement store chain.

“It should add a lot of value to the company because it will reduce the need for additional personnel and increase their ability to service their customers faster,” said Nathan Lewis, an analyst with Jackson Securities Inc. in Atlanta.

The technology also could help Home Depot with a proposal it announced earlier this year to shift more employees from full-time to part-time status, Lewis said.

Four self-service checkout terminals are being set up in about 800 city locations to replace two or three employee-operated stations. The company also is buying performance software to assess cashiers’ skills.

Sixty percent of Home Depot staff are full-time. The other 40 percent are part-time.

Company spokesman Don Harrison said the retailer’s move to self-checkout was not an attempt to cut staff.

“Nobody is losing a job or being displaced as a result of this,” he said. “We can always use help back in the aisles waiting on customers. Will it mean a shift toward more part-time work? I don’t know.”

The nation’s largest home improvement store chain has partnered with NCR Corp. for the equipment and Microsoft for its Windows software. The technology is called FAST, for Front-end Accuracy and Service Transformation.

The Home Depot self-checkout terminals walk customers through the process, with computerized voices talking to them as they scan their items. Customers can choose between English or Spanish.

Nationwide, more customers are embracing self-scan checkouts at grocery and discount stores, prompting big chains to increase the number of do-it-yourself registers.

Optimal Robotics Corp. of Montreal sold the first self-checkout scanner in 1995, and it has since put more than 5,000 units in grocery and retail stores.