Daisy Brand Benefits From RFID Analytics

"We want to know if it got placed on the shelf, which stores were compliant and which were not," Brown says. "If we get zero sales on one day, we want to know why." That information can be particularly important regarding a promotion, he says, adding that "advertising and media costs money, and if you then face an out-of-stock, that's not good."

With the launch of Daisy Brand's cottage cheese product, Brown and his team have been able to determine when the product was put on the shelf, as well as monitor how quickly it sells. In the event of a problem, such as empty shelves during a promotion, the company can send its personnel to the store to correct it. "That's a better use of my marketing team and Wal-Mart's time," Brown says. Thus far, he adds, they have found no serious problems at Wal-Mart stores.

In its Garland warehouse, Daisy Brand originally employed Alien 9780 interrogators on its forklifts. Those readers, since replaced with the smaller Alien ALR9900 interrogator, were bistatic, requiring separate antennas to transmit and receive RF signals. The new model is monostatic, using one antenna to receive and transmit data. Because the ALR9900 needs only one antenna to operate, Brown says, "there aren't as many things in the way of the forklift driver."

At the dock doors, the company switched from the bistatic Alien 9800 to the monostatic ALR9900. In this case, Brown says, the upgrade boosted the read rate because Daisy Brand uses the same number of antennas it did with the Alien 9800, but gets better response because all antennas can now receive and send data—previously, only half the antennas received, while the other half transmitted data. The Daisy Brand system employs GlobeRanger's iMotion Edgeware to collect data from the interrogators.

"From here," Brown states, "my hope is to get some of our suppliers on board." That includes companies providing Daisy Brand with raw materials such as milk and cream, as well as boxes, cups and lids. Daisy currently tracks the arrival and use of materials and supplies on paper, he says, but would rather use RFID instead because "it would be good from a forecasting standpoint. We'd like to be able to say we're consuming this amount of your product," making it easier for the companies to predict the next order. Thus far, Brown says, none of the manufacturer's suppliers use RFID technology, though several have asked him about it.