Archive for the ‘RFID’ Category:
RFID Technology integrated with the supply chain at Walt-Mart
Are you aware of the material handling techniques that Wal-Mart has introduced in the recent past? Introduction of RFID technology to control the overabundance and shortage of the available inventory is one of the prominent materials’ handling initiative taken up by Wal-Mart.
As reported by a news article in mhmonline, Mollis Ford, Executive Vice President, Wal-Mart emphasizes on the widespread usage of Generation 2 tags from EPCGlobal. The existing supply chain network with Generation 1 tag is expected to switch over to a network equipped with Generation 2 tags shortly. Around 1000 marketing franchisees are expected to implement this RFID initiative of Wal-Mart by this year end.
Click here to read my previous post on Wal-Mart’s five-year-plan to reduce package cost in material handling.
Subscribe to the comments for this postRFID and Supply Chain Security
If you are looking for a secure supply chain solution, you must take the help of RFID, which has emerged the most preferred technology to track and monitor activities. The draft standards work for RFID electronic seals include the ISO RFID standard. It is related to ISO freight container management.
There is a three-tier framework, composed and created by the user community and it starts at the base level with a so-called container tag. It will be a passive tag on each container with a unique identifier, which is a revised version of ISO 10374. The second tier is the electronic seal, known as ISO 18185. Finally, the third tier is a shipment-oriented tag that is optional for shippers who wish to add additional data and richness to their supply chain management.
Read my previous post titled “RFID Making Inroads into the Supply Chain” to know more about RFID in supply chain.
RFID Making Inroads into the Supply Chain
Although RFID is a new phenomenon in the supply chain industry, it has made significant inroads into the system. RFID is already being used in many successful applications outside and inside the supply chain. Many organizations are working on industrializing the applications, expanding their rollout and leveraging the real-time. They also collect the detailed data that is available from tracking inventory across the supply chain. Not surprisingly, these same companies are now the leaders in these early days of the growth phase.
Read my previous post titled “RFID Solutions for Warehouse Management” to know how RFID is being used in warehouse management system.
During the growth phase, several factors must work together simultaneously to ultimately set up the environment for the transition. RFID will transition from optional to necessary technology when organization will feel the need of RFID in their supply chain network. There is no doubt that RFID will play a key role in advancing the technology by imposing its use on suppliers or customers.
RFID Solutions for Warehouse Management
Many warehousing operations have been addressed by RFID solutions for a long period. RFID in warehouse management covers receipt discrepancies, wait times, pick/fill inaccuracies and complicated rules. Some issues such as space utilization and supplier disputes in the warehouse operations have been successfully resolved by RFID technology. RFID also increases availability and customer service in the warehouse.
There are several firms that offer RFID solutions for warehouse management. However, before deploying RFID, you need to ensure that you have invested in the right systems and processes. The combination of RFID services and software components offer greater benefits to the organizations. It ensures the highest return out of their RFID investments.
Reusable RFID Tag in Material Handling
EPCglobal is presenting EPCglobal Gen 2 RFID tags that can be rewritten thousands of times. They are impact-resistant and have the power to survive hazardous chemical exposure. The reusable RFID tags can withstand temperatures from -40 to 250°F. According to company sources, a single tag can be used to identify and track all type of items such as finished goods and material handling equipment.
The most significant quality of the tags is that they can withstand extreme temperature that is rarely found with other tags. The EPCglobal Gen2 tags have frequency bandwidth and allow companies to use one tag worldwide. The innovative antenna design provides superior performance on range of materials including metal, wood and plastic. Reusability of the RFID tags reduces total cost of ownership.
More Information: Read Here
The new Intermec RFID Large Rigid Tag, available immediately in EPCglobal Gen 2 and ISO 18000-6B versions for use worldwide, allows enterprises to take advantage of the capabilities of RFID to track materials through demanding industrial processes and global logistics operations.
RFID Solutions for Warehouse Management
Many warehousing issues are now being addressed by RFID. They include receipt discrepancies, wait times, pick/fill inaccuracies and rigid and complicated rules. RFID is successfully resolving these issues while increasing availability and customer service at the warehouse. RFID solutions deploy RFID technology to ensure that companies invest in the right systems and processes.
There are some companies that have implemented internal tracking systems to locate and identify movable totes for transporting small shipments. Each tote identified a specific customer’s shipments and permits instant access to shipments. RFID in warehouse management enables flawless automated execution at all levels in the warehousing process.
RFID-Enabled Pallets
Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS) has introduced RFID-enabled plastic pallets for those who wish to rent light, durable pallets and track shipments in real time. The company claims to be the only large-scale outside pallet supply service that provides RFID tags in every pallet. MMH reports:
Industry veteran Bob Moore, who spent seven years as CEO of wood pallet pool supplier CHEP International, launched the company last month with initial plans to target consumer electronics and pharmaceutical suppliers.
Moving RFID From Niche Application to Broad-Based Supply Chain Solution
Experts are of the opinion that a hundred million dollars need to be invested in research on RFID, over the next five years. More and more companies are experimenting with RFID, for the purpose of automating their business processes. A recent academic convention was chaired by Miles at MIT. Over 100 leaders in RFID, from businesses and well-known research universities, across the world gathered for this convention. They discussed the role of business and researchers in RFID. Among the diverse views and viewpoints, an agreement was reached on one issue - that a variety of skills and academic disciplines are needed to move RFID beyond the slap-and-ship solutions, in use right now. In order to get transparency across supply chain, it is very clear that everyone has to be working together. There has to be a concurrence between the material handling personnel and the information technology people. Representatives from the material handling industry have begun working on RFID initiatives concerning national and international unit load and transport standards.
RFID Speding to go up to 2.5 Billion, Across the World; By 2010
DMeurope.com has reported that the worldwide RFID spending will reach 2.5 billion by 2010. RFID technology is steadily gathering momentum. Hardware and software expenditure will rise towards the end of 2006-2007. Apart from asset tracking, each industry will have specialized applications of RFID, which cannot be generalized. There will be several Industries that will be able to adopt RFID technology, very fast. This list includes defense and aerospace, healthcare, logistics and pharmaceuticals. Logisticmgmt.com reports:
RFID is an automated data collection technology that uses radio frequency waves to transfer data between a reader and an RFID tag to identify, track or locate that item. RFID does not, specifically, require physical sight or contact between the reader/scanner and the tagged item.
Read More: Worldwide RFID Spending to Reach 2.5bn in 2010 Report
Challenging Task: Making RFID Tags Work on Metal Coils
It requires both creativity and engineering ingenuity to make RFID tags work efficiently and effectively with metal coils. As metal coils differ in both composition and density, these factors have a considerable impact on RFID tag readability. Manufacturing.net reports:
Other considerations were customer tag placement requirements. For some products, the tag is at the bottom of the pallet about two inches from the floor, while other are as far as five feet from the floor.
Read More: Tagging Steel Coils: Making So the Impossible