By Mark Roberti

Aug. 1, 2006—The letter to the World Kitchen CEO from Wal-Mart was dated May 25, 2004. It said simply that Wal-Mart planned to deploy a new technology called radio frequency identification in its supply chain beginning in January 2005. Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers would be required to put RFID tags carrying Electronic Product Codes on pallets and cases by that time. The next-largest suppliers, which included World Kitchen, would have to start tagging products in January 2006.

The Wal-Mart letter was followed by one from Target on July 1, asking World Kitchen to start tagging pallets and cases even earlier—June 2005. World Kitchen had one year to learn how to comply with tagging requirements and deploy RFID technology in its supply chain. It met Target's tagging requirements in June 2005 and Wal-Mart's in January 2006. And it was among the first suppliers to integrate its RFID system with its back-end software, making it possible to increase the number of stock-keeping units (SKUs) tagged without increasing costs, and paving the way for the company to achieve internal efficiencies as the technology evolves and costs come down.

"The decision to integrate the RFID tagging operation with the company's back-end system came out of team discussions."—Randy Peterson, VP for information technology, World Kitchen

World Kitchen is less than a decade old. In 1998, Corning, a company well known for its CorningWare dishes and Corelle tableware, sold off its consumer products business. A year later, World Kitchen was formed when the former Corning unit was combined with two acquisitions—General Housewares and EKCO Housewares. Today, World Kitchen manufactures bakeware, dinnerware, kitchen and household tools, range-top cookware and cutlery. These are sold under well-known brands, including Baker's Secret, Chicago Cutlery, Corelle, CorningWare, EKCO, Magnalite, OLFA, Pyrex, Revere and Visions.