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Is RFID right for you right
now? If you have been
"invited" to implement RFID
by one
of your customers, that decision is easy. If there is no mandate on the
horizon, you
need to evaluate the advantages of using RFID within your own
company. It may be
too expensive to mark every individual item, but putting
RFID labels on pallets and
cartons yields the same advantages Wal-Mart and the DoD are looking
for - inventory
tracking and theft prevention.
Educate your employees on
the technology and let them
brainstorm internal
applications. Even if you decide, after learning more about the
technology, that
RFID is not for you right now, you have made an informed and important
decision.
Those of you who have
successfully adopted
Electronic Data Interchange
(EDI) have
been here before. In the beginning, EDI was just considered a
nuisance and an
expense. Now that suppliers have it integrated into their
systems and have learned
how to take advantage of electronic business transactions, they are
realizing big
returns on their investment. (If the pain/performance ratio
on EDI is still unacceptable
to your company - talk to someone. It certainly doesn't have
to be that way.)
The Difference Between "Got
To" and "Want To"
Somewhere on
this list a supplier will go
from "got to" to "want to",
providing at least
as much efficiency and advantage to themselves as to their
customer.
From the supplier's
perspective:
-
Are you part of a
Target, Best Buy,
Wal-Mart, DoD mandate?
-
Even though you don't
have a mandate, do you
have customers who are
using RFID? If so, you will
be involved sooner or
later.
-
Are you implementing new
systems that, some day,
will have to be RFID compatible?
This includes new
physical buildings;
package engineering for
new items; updated
warehouse management or
enterprise resource
planning software; new
scanning or wireless
network hardware, and so
on.
-
Do you need improved
supply chain visibility
from your suppliers?
-
Do you need better process
control? When you
track an item through
your systems you are
gathering both item /
event data and valuable
information about the
process itself.
-
Do you need to manage shrinkage
(products and labor
hours)?
-
Would doing RFID
increase sales?
-
Do you need tracking and
tracing capability?
-
Are you a
technologically savvy
entrepreneur? Do
you want the positive
public relations that
accompany being a leader
in your industry sector?
-
Are you interested in
conducting a fun science
experiment?
What's in it for Me?
Is RFID Just an Expense?
Is RFID just an expensive
bar code? More to the
point, if you are a supplier
to
retail, is it just an
expense? It is, of
course, if you don’t find
some way to take
advantage
of the technology within
your own four walls.
Let’s get creative with one
possible way to use RFID
to your benefit. If you ship
product in case-packs, and
your retail customer will be
asking you to apply an RFID
Serial Shipping Container
Code when you send them the
goods, why not put the
SSCC
on a chip, in a small label,
on the carton, when you
receive it? You can use
that license plate number to
track the carton internally,
through put-way, inventory,
picking, packing and shipping. Put RFID readers on
the dock door, to track
exactly
what gets loaded
onto the truck. Make
the system is very visible
so everyone knows
you have a new inventory tracking capability and it will be much
more difficult for
product to "fall through the cracks". When
creating the UCC Common
Shipping
Label, read the
RFID SSCC and use it to print the
usual (non-RFID) label. When
purchased
in volume, the smaller RFID
labels should cost less than
4 x 6 shipping
labels. You
could do the same with
serialized GTIN labels.
Perhaps you could even
print
them up ahead of time and if
you manufacture off-shore,
ask your source to
apply the
labels to increase
visibility upstream.
In many cases, depending on
the
composition of your product (if it does not contain a lot of metal,
liquid or electrolytes)
you can simply throw the tag into the box and read it through the
carton.
As always, "arm" yourself
with an understanding of
international standards so
you can avoid costly one-off installations. Here is a good
place to start:
http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards_technology/specifications.html
One thing is for sure.
It is better to work and
learn at your own pace than
to wait
until you have an externally imposed deadline.
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