Walgreens Opens RFID-Enabled Distribution Center

Once the totes are loaded properly aboard the correct truck, the Blue Vector portal sends a notice to the warehouse management system via a cabled connection, which the system then forwards to the receiving store. As empty totes are returned to the distribution center, the Blue Vector portals read their tags and workers clean them and scan their tags once more. Totes that are damaged or have unreadable tags are taken to a "tote hospital," where they are repaired or replaced.

The system consists of 45 portals, most of which are installed between every other dock door, and which are capable of reading totes being loaded through either door. The portals include Blue Vector's edge manager software, which links the totes' tag ID numbers with the shipment data and recognizes an error as it occurs. All the portals, whether installed at dock doors and at conveyors, are managed by 65 edge managers, which receive information from the portals and analyze the totes' location based on reads from those portals. The edge manager then shares the data with the Blue Vector network manager. "The edge manager is where the software meets the real world," Beans says.

The edge manager software can determine the location of a dolly and its totes based on the number of times their tags are read by a specific reader, or readers, as well as where they travel next. "The problem isn't getting a read," Beans explains. "The problem is anywhere near a dock door, you can get a read from three of five or more readers at once. It's not a problem of missing tags, but discriminating between reads."

By analyzing which specific portals consistently capture reads, the system can thus identify where the totes are being placed.

According to Beans, the pilot phase of the system began with a few RFID portals in 2007, and as the distribution center was built, additional portals were added. In full operation, the Anderson DC ships about 80,000 tagged totes daily to about 700 stores. Walgreens declined to be interviewed for this story, though Beans indicates the company's managers have been happy with the system thus far. "They wanted to eliminate misshipments, and they wanted to eliminate paperwork," Beans says, adding that the drugstore chain has accomplished both goals.