Jul 25, 2011—Those who follow golf know that the Europeans are dominating the Grand Slam tournaments. And those keeping tabs on RFID know that European retailers are dominating the RFID Journal Awards. In 2009, Swiss retailer Charles Vögele Group walked away with RFID Journal's Best RFID Implementation award (see An RFID Fashion Statement). This year, German-based women's clothing designer and retailer Gerry Weber International took that honor (see this week's featured story, Gerry Weber's Pain-Free RFID Revolution).

Gerry Weber, like Charles Vögele, is employing radio frequency identification to track individual clothing items from the point of manufacture to the point of sale. The company is RFID-tracking approximately 20 percent of the 25 million items that it produces annually under its multiple brand names, including Gerry Weber, Gerry Weber Edition, G.W., Samoon and Taifun by Gerry Weber.

The retailer is working with some 240 outsourced manufacturing partners in China, Turkey and other countries, as well as its company-owned plant in Romania, a handful of third-party transport and warehouse logistics partners, and roughly 200 House of Gerry Weber stores throughout Germany.

Goods are tagged at the point of sale, with transponders provided by Avery Dennison RFID. The logistics providers that pick up the items in Asia have installed tunnel readers to identify what is being picked up, and that data is transmitted to Gerry Weber's supply chain management system, so that in the event of a problem, it can be addressed immediately. "If 500 items are missing, we can call the supplier and ask if there's a second shipment coming," says Christian von Grone, Gerry Weber's CIO, "or find out what is the matter with the delivery."

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Ron Pulvermacher	2011-07-29 09:58:21 AM
youtube video illustrating RFID inventory management We recently made a cool little youtube video to better explain what RFID inventory management is to the average consumer. I thought you'd get a kick out of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ttdESB9_g Let me know what you think.

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Gerry Weber Shows How Retailers Benefit From RFID

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