Providing a Road Map for Sam's Suppliers

Part of the problem is that while the vendor community has done a great job of improving the performance of their tags and readers, and while systems integrators have helped many companies meet tagging requirements, they haven't helped suppliers get to the next step. End users haven't really grasped that they can easily and cost-effectively deploy an RFID infrastructure that can be used to cut costs internally, reduce out-of-stocks and boost sales. It might not lead to an ROI overnight, but over the long term, this infrastructure will pay for itself many times over.

Some end users aware of how Kimberly-Clark and others are leveraging EPC data dismiss such applications as being relevant only for multi-billion-dollar consumer packaged goods companies. Unfortunately, many smaller companies gaining value from EPC data prefer not to reveal what they are doing with the data—either for competitive reasons, or because they have trouble quantifying the benefits.

Better education will help, so RFID Journal is teaming up with EPCglobal to provide education for Sam's suppliers—and others—at RFID Journal LIVE! 2008, being held in Las Vegas on April 16-18. The goal of the one-day course is to show companies how to get compliant—and explain how they can easily and cost-effectively integrate RFID into their back-end systems to improve their operations without any extra labor involved.

This is going to be critical as companies tag more cases. You can get away with manual processes when you are tagging a few cases for one distribution center, but it's a whole other kettle of fish when you're tagging all cases bound for a retailer the size of Sam's Club.

The education will then take suppliers beyond compliance. At LIVE! 2008, we'll bring in companies large and small that are already gaining benefits, so they can see that the ROI is not some fiction held out to get them to jump on the EPC bandwagon. We'll give folks a checklist of questions they'll need to ask the technology partners that can help them achieve an ROI.

If we can provide these suppliers with a roadmap that gets them from compliance to benefits, they are likely to travel that path more quickly. RFID Journal and EPCglobal can now provide the roadmap to all of those Wal-Mart suppliers that still have not found their way, and the vendor community can steer existing and potential customers to training designed to help them make sense of how and where to apply the technology.

Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal. If you would like to comment on this article, click on the link below.