Wilson Sporting Goods Looking to Score With RFID

Wilson brought in RFID system integrator Peak Technologies to work with Matthews and help the company develop and deploy its RFID tagging system. Wilson is now employing Zebra Technology R110Xi RFID printer-encoders to create RFID-enabled shipping labels for the cases and pallets. The R110Xi devices receive the order information necessary to produce the labels—the shipping address, order information and Electronic Product Code (EPC) to be encoded to each tag—through an XML interface to the SAP Auto ID Infrastructure (AII) software running at the Wilson distribution center.

Each label includes human-readable text, a bar code and an EPC number encoded on an Alien Technology EPC Gen 2 Squiggle inlay embedded inside the label. The labels are hand-applied to the cases and pallets, which are then routed past fixed-position Motorola RFID interrogators to capture the tag data as the shipments are being loaded onto trucks bound for Wal-Mart.

According to Matthews, RFID tag technology has significantly improved since his experiences deploying RFID at Pacific Cycle in 2004 and 2005. "This time around," he says, "it is so much easier, in terms of [tag] readability."

Matthews and his team are currently in the process of collecting and analyzing tag-read data from Retail Link, Wal-Mart's supplier feedback service, and hope it will provide valuable insights into bottlenecks or other problems at Wal-Mart's DCs and retail stores. He notes that one of the applications of RFID in which Wilson sees potential value is the tracking of promotional displays, because the company launches new products each year.

A number of product suppliers are deriving benefits from employing RFID to track promotional items and displays at retail stores (see P&G Finds RFID 'Sweet Spot', OATSystems Launches Solutions for Tracking In-Store Product Promotions and Maternity Apparel Maker to Deploy Smart Displays in Stores).