By Mark Roberti

Now that the EPC is being adopted by leading retailers in the United States and Europe and by the U.S. Department of Defense, collaboration has become critical. Many of the big benefits EPC offers—cutting out-of-stocks, slashing inventory throughout the supply chain, reducing counterfeiting, and automating shipping and receiving—can be achieved only if companies work together, share data and develop standardized business processes. But there are obstacles to collaboration, including competing corporate agendas, competitive issues and cultural inhibitions about sharing information. The companies that overcome them will likely benefit most from EPC technology.

“You can optimize your operation within your own four walls and achieve some efficiencies, but collaboration is the key to getting some of the bigger benefits that EPC promises,” says Bob Mytkowicz, manager of customer, order, and logistics systems for Gillette in North America.

By far the biggest benefit for both retailers and manufacturers is reducing the number of times a product is not on the shelf when a customer comes in to buy it. Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart’s CIO, says knowing what’s in the back of the store is the single most important type of information her company will get from RFID, because it will help Wal-Mart reduce out-of-stocks.

But retailers and suppliers need to work together to reduce out-of-stocks. “New EPC information, even from reading pallet and case movement and location, can be combined with modifications in business processes to help ensure that product is visible, traceable and reaches the shelf,” says Chris Lemmond, product manager for EPCglobal US. “And that’s the goal for both manufacturer and retailer.”