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Wal-Mart, DOD Point to Sustained Progress
Estevez provided an update on the DOD's deployment of its passive RFID mandate, saying the department recorded 180,000 tag reads last month—a 40 percent increase from one year ago—across all of the Defense Logistics Agency's RFID-enabled depots, which consist of all 17 of its continental U.S. depots and two of its eight overseas, including one at Pearl Harbor, where the Navy and Marines currently employ RFID to track commodities and assets (see Navy, Marines Track Assets on Oahu).
"We have not backed off at all," Estevez said. "We are making sustained progress." However, he noted, funds for expanding the RFID system—to do things such as establish an EPCIS-based data-sharing system to let supplies know when their tagged shipments have arrived—are difficult to allocate, given the attention the federal government must place on the country's financial systems.
Still, Estevez said, the RFID system has allowed the DLA to correlate advance shipment notices with tag reads at the depots, in order to reconcile orders with receipts and expedite payments to suppliers applying tags. In addition, he said, the department has made progress in adding RFID tagging clauses to supplier contracts, "despite" findings in a recent report issued by the DOD's Office of the Inspector General (see Needs to Enforce Its Own RFID Mandate, Says Inspector General). That report recommended that the department do more to ensure it reaps a return on its RFID investment.
"You could say that 10 percent of [contracts] are not complying, rather than say that 90 percent are—it depends on how you look at it," Estevez stated, referencing one of the report's findings: that of 220 audited supply contracts, 23—or 10 percent—failed to include a clause requiring that goods be tagged before being shipped to RFID-enabled depots.
When asked if they were satisfied with their respective RFID rollouts, both Walton and Estevez said they were not, inasmuch as being satisfied meant meeting all of their program objectives. "I don't think satisfaction is a word I use in Wal-Mart culture," Walton said. "We continually reassess. It [the RFID rollout] is a journey, and we have made significant steps, but we're not done and I don't know that we ever will be. We'll always be looking for ways to lower prices."
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| Alan Estevez |
Still, Estevez said, the RFID system has allowed the DLA to correlate advance shipment notices with tag reads at the depots, in order to reconcile orders with receipts and expedite payments to suppliers applying tags. In addition, he said, the department has made progress in adding RFID tagging clauses to supplier contracts, "despite" findings in a recent report issued by the DOD's Office of the Inspector General (see Needs to Enforce Its Own RFID Mandate, Says Inspector General). That report recommended that the department do more to ensure it reaps a return on its RFID investment.
When asked if they were satisfied with their respective RFID rollouts, both Walton and Estevez said they were not, inasmuch as being satisfied meant meeting all of their program objectives. "I don't think satisfaction is a word I use in Wal-Mart culture," Walton said. "We continually reassess. It [the RFID rollout] is a journey, and we have made significant steps, but we're not done and I don't know that we ever will be. We'll always be looking for ways to lower prices."
