How Can The RFID Technology Helps Us To Solve The Problem Of Logistics And Stock Security And Global Supply Chain?

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As the internet becomes more and more developed and popular ，the RFID technology widely used in so many fileds , especially a global supply chain and logistics and stock security. It makes no sense, and it won’t get you very far.

Nowadays, it’s simply ludicrous not to integrate your supply chain. The easier it is to share information between suppliers, warehouses, and transportation companies, the smoother your supply chain moves goods. A tighter supply chain is a stronger supply chain.

With RFID technology, sharing and accessing data is easier. RFID tags allow organizations to quickly account for goods in transit and capture data about them, which is then shared with other supply chain partners.

RFID technology was the key in getting 100% reliability about where a shipped item is at any given moment and when it got to its destination in real-time. This information is extremely valuable data to a logistics’ company.

Tagging goods and pallets, you can instantly know what goods you have, how many they are and how much space they occupy in your warehouse or back store just when they are entered.

Can you imagine what would happen if huge food companies didn’t have a constant and instant control of the products they have in stock? When you shop at the supermarket you are not aware of how much the product has travelled, but thanks to RFID technology there is a trace of its movements.

Even you can paint a scenario where a delivery truck is loaded with boxes that have a chip so that an RFID scanner can create an up-to-date and detailed list of exactly what has been put on and removed from the truck. This allows the company to know in real-time exactly how much space is occupied and optimize their deliveries.

For example, the early adoption of RFID by retail giants of Wal-Mart, for creating the impetus for adopting the technology by the logistics and supply chain industry. Wal-Mart asked their merchants to tag incoming skids. When these pallets entered Wal-Mart warehouses and back stores, they would be able to instantly see the contents of the skid.

Zara also is an example of a well-known company that’s used RFID tags to achieve operational excellence. As a fast-fashion retailer, Zara’s entire business model relies on its ability to deliver cost-effective alternatives to trendy, pricier pieces. One of the major drawbacks of this business model is that trends come and go, but suppliers may need a few months’ notice to produce enough inventory.

To keep track of its massive inventory in real time, the global retailer uses RFID tags across the supply chain. Zara encodes garments from the manufacturing stage, enabling end-to-end tracking. Inventory managers can easily check whether items are out-of-stock, while also enabling Zara to respond quickly to fast-selling items and produce more. It’s also worth mentioning that Zara manufactures its own clothing.

As digital technology has advanced, RFID technology has become accessible even to small and medium sized businesses. For instance, a small area rug business can attach a tag to every carpet in their retail shop and can zoom the scanner over the rugs to get instant and accurate count of their inventory with all sorts of details, including size of the carpet, quality, country of manufacture, and so on. This eliminates the need for physical inventory counts, which are not only expensive, but rarely 100% accurate. The same principle applies in a warehouse of a supply chain management company. If their packages are tagged, they can find out in real-time all the details they need to know about any box.

Industry experts do point out that RFID will not be a replacement for barcodes, as almost every product in developed countries now has a barcode attached to it. Barcodes also help keep retailers inventory and analyze buying patterns, like the time of the day a product is sold the least. RFID tags are an improvement over barcodes, as the newer technology allows the data on a tag to be updated and changed. Yet, billions of transactions still occur annually with barcodes for them to simply disappear.