RFID Has a Future in Middle Eastern Phone Store

The RFID reader installed at the door also enables the system to identify customers carrying RFID-based loyalty cards as they enter the showroom. This gives sales clerks the opportunity to identify VIP customers, and to quickly access their purchase histories.

An RFID reader installed under the checkout counter automatically identifies a customer's loyalty card and tallies up the items being purchased.

What's more, the system helps monitor stock levels in the backroom, where an RFID interrogator was set up to detect individual items every 10 minutes and report that information back to the computer system. Based on that data, the system sends an e-mail message to the distribution center noting that certain items have reached low stock levels, thus enabling replenishment.

Future R.F.I.D.'s Abdullah Almuzaini

When a customer is ready to make a purchase, items need not be scanned individually. Instead, a clerk moves that person's shopping basket across the checkout counter, under which an interrogator is installed. The patron's bill is calculated automatically, and the purchase history is added to that individual's profile if he participates in the loyalty program.

Salespeople at the store are satisfied with the system, Almuzaini said, due to its ability to save them time and effort in stocking shelves and waiting on customers.



In a separate supply chain pilot that concluded in approximately April of this year, Future R.F.I.D. and FCC tested a system that involved tagging mobile phones at the manufacturer and tracking them until they were received by the store. The purpose of the pilot was to test a system for full visibility from the manufacturer to the end user, Almuzaini told attendees, declining to provide additional details regarding that project.