Introduction
In today’s global market where there is great deal of competition, businesses have to speedily react to the needs of customers, offer added-value product and services, and be able to maintain consistency in technology in order to carry on and stay in the marketplace. Retail business in many divisions such as unit stores and general products stores are facing dwindling and maturing market, while other divisions, for example, convenience stores are fast rising in various nations like Japan and European countries. A number of the issues in the retail business are low stock turnover, theft, incapable of reacting to market and high level in excess stock. Furthermore, several customers in retail stores come across long lines for payment at cash records which results in unlikable, less acceptable experience for the customers. Information and Communication Technologies section, Radio Frequency Identification technology in particular, has been situated and confronted to give solutions to these problems.
RFID technology is one of the fast rising automatic information compilation technologies that uses a wireless radio transmission to exclusively identify things or people by means of radio frequency signals. These days Radio Frequency Identification technology providers contend to give absolute solutions that support decision making, process optimization, better customer satisfactions, and hence, raise company profit. In addition, the importance of RFID comprises removal of human mistakes, quicker data collection, hand-off operation, and harsh environment applicability (Roberti 23).
RFID history can be traced around World War II when the first radars were created in radio signal broadcast. In the 1950s, the thought of RFID investigation started, and several technologies linked to RFID such as the long-range transponder systems were constructed. A man by name Harry Stockman initiated the idea of RFID around 1948 – 49 with his term paper known as Communication by Means of Reflected Power, however barely thirty years later the RFID technology and its function began to grow and was taken into consideration. In the 1990s, additional market sections were actively using the technology yet the dissimilar RFID systems for each business made it unsuited when they tried to integrate and converse to each other. To react to this drawback in the late 1990s, the Auto-ID Centre specification and ISO 1800 were launched to create a standardization of Radio Frequency Identification system.
How products can be tagged using RFID
Your tagging alternatives will likely develop as the deployment scales. For example, all through the deployment of the phase, it will be reasonable to slap and ship from your individual allotment location. But as you are required to label items for extra D Cs and supplies, you would want to computerize everything about the labeling procedure. There are many different ways in which tagging process can be automated (Martein 38).
Offline Tagging
When you have any thought of how to interrupt your product line but you want to use an automatic labeling method, it will be likely to put the label on or inside the wrapping previous than it makes its way into the production line. If you employ a mechanism to involuntarily unlock flat ridged parcels for packing, chance may come up for you to put the label on the parcel in the course of this procedure. Or, if you slot in a cover of information into a parcel, it might be likely to put a tag on that cover previous to its introduction. Otherwise, the tag may perhaps be located on the parcel after the production process is done – like for example, when the parcel is sealed. When it makes good judgment to utilize this alternative relies on your present business procedures (William 136).
The main advantage of this alternative is that it decreases disruption to the production process, making it simpler to eliminate a tag that is bad. If a bad label is observed on a considerable-speed fabrication line, the operator is prone to miss the ensuing two parcels while eliminating the bad label. If you label a code to the tag and relate it to the packaging earlier than it gets to the production line, frequently you can verify that the tag is functioning properly—and if not, you can get rid of it earlier than it gets to the line. This technique also necessitates little continuing venture in work and is well scalable. The disadvantage is that it involves a considerable up-front investment in tools and integration work (Berth 155).
Inline Tagging
You can put a speedy tag applicator on your production line so that as the product comes close to the end of the line-normally when a case is parceled-a tag is applied and given a code. If your production line is quite slow, like about 30 to 40 units per minute, the product’s form makes it simpler to apply the label, and you have no alternatives for labeling offline, it will be of relevance for you to incorporate the tagging process into your production line. With the case of labeling offline, this approach necessitates only a little continuing investment in labor and it is considered as the most scalable. With production lines that tend to be fast, however, it might be hard to transmit, program and authenticate the label without slowing the whole process. Additionally, this method necessitates the leading up-front venture in tools and integration work; there is also a danger that troubles with the labeling equipment could interrupt manufacturing (Harrison 321).
The Case of RFID as a Success
The company: Jade
Jade Jewellery is a business that is based in Saudi Arabia. It manages four stores across the region of Saudi Arabia and concentrates mostly in European jewelry. The business also deals in diamonds and offers beautiful designs that draw a very choosy clientele.
The challenge: troubles with safety and Inventory
In the past, Jade Company went through considerable financial loss because of missing jewelry credited to internal shoplifting. Close to about US$267,000 worth of jewelry had been missing and the company could not precisely prove theft to the law enforcement owing to lack of evidence. The circumstances led to main accounting troubles with inventory, and Jade Jewellery invited Depco systems, a partner with Motorola and renowned leader in RFID solutions, to provide a technological solution which could observe sales and activities in the store. Depco Systems outsourced three Radio Frequency identification hardware producers, together with Motorola, to carry out a six month trial.
The solution: RFID technology was implemented by Jade Jewellery
After the tryout, Jade selected Motorola’s XR480 RFID reader due to its capability to incorporate with a broad range of other applications. This embraced Depco’s software application called Asset Trail-Intelligent Store, which observes, controls and tracks jewelry that is tagged. Every bit of items in the store is fixed with a reactive RFID label earlier than being positioned on view. The Radio Frequency Identification labels carries information that is saved and utilize radio waves to involuntarily track items.
Motorola XR480 RFID readers are mounted inside the shelves, at the entrance and outlet point of the store, and in front of the protected door.
A total system together with the hardware components, Asset Trail appliance and the incorporation together with presented proprietary software, was modified to examine, track and direct all things around the shopping mall according to the company guiding principles. The RFID system replies and reacts to the conduct of staff, and the supervisor is given alert by alarm if in case the company strategies in managing merchandise are not satisfied. To further develop good safety measures, every worker is given an RFID badge that is used to register their conduct on the main server and allows them to access the jewelry without putting off any alarms. The system is encoded to give Jade Jewellery staff a minute to relocate an item of jewelry from its container to the client display tray. When a mobile exhibit tray is place on the screening table, it is monitored by an aerial installed in its mid segment until it is returned back on the display case. Any irregular activities in handling the goods while executing operations such as sales, shifts, batch or safe replenishment will put off an alarm.
At the last part of each day, the staff initiates a process in Asset Trail-Intelligent Store which informs the system that the goods are being protected in the safe. The Jewelry is put on the POS desk where the system recognizes and commits the goods being moved to the safe. The system authenticates the committed goods leaving into the safe with a dedicated transmitter in front of the safe door, verifying transfer before being cut off as the safe door is closed. Extra services, like the shift of items from one shop to another, batches and returns from customers, are all monitored using RFID.
The outcome: RFID improves Business
Since implementing RFID results in 2008, there have been no interior stealing, providing Jade with a ROI of about 400%.
Previous to implementing DEPCO RFID result, lost items would go unobserved until a month later. Periodic record done physically regularly took 2-3 operational days to review all stocks, costing valuable business time and resources. With the new RFID system, it takes about 10 minutes to audit the entire stock. By the aid of the Asset Trail-Intelligent Store function, Jade is capable to track all procedures and actions linking to running a profitable retail business. Additional profits comprise screen information viewing in-store goods activity. This will capture client’s activities, tastes and favorites towards the preferred jewelry. Jade Jewellery can now obviously and rapidly establish the kind of goods that are well-liked with consumers for each store; this aid the group as they choose which new lines they ought to bring in when ordering latest stock from suppliers, which can decrease stock turnaround instance.
Conclusion
No matter what is being said of RFID, most companies have experimented with RFID technology and has competed to offer absolute solutions that sustain decision-making, procedure optimization, better customer satisfactions, and hence, boost company profit (Webster 88).
Works Cited
Berth, Bacheldor. Changes: Agricultural Company Tracks Equipment Loaned to Farmers. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Harrison, Road. Merchandise: EU considers overhauling rules for lost air luggage. New York: Procter, 2009. Print
Martein, Meints. Mystery: A Structured Collection on Information and Literature on Technological and Usability Aspects of Radio Frequency Identification. Ohio: Kent, 2009. Print.
Roberti, Mark. Yearnings: A 5-Cent Breakthrough. Detroit: Marker, 2010. Print.
Webster, Philip. Reality: BAA and Emirates test new baggage tagging technology. California: Zeek, 2009. Print.
William, Tim. Dawn: Sam’s Club Tells Suppliers to Tag or Pay. Michigan: Buzz, 2009. Print.