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THE WORLD'S RFID AUTHORITY
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Article Link: Wal-Mart, Suppliers Affirm RFID Benefits
Wal-Mart RFID fizzle?
by KEN ROHLEDER, posted 02/22/2007
This article denies the Wall Street Journal's claims while simultaneously confirming them.
The fact is, Wal-Mart under Linda Dillman was clearly mandating case-level RFID across the board. She told MSN Money Magazine that "they would not invest more time in suppliers that are reluctant..." The major CPG's co-opted the initiative to meet their ends -- namely to insure store-level compliance with promotional product in which they give Wal-Mart significant funds for executing. No compliance -- no funds. The use of RFID for promotions does benefit suppliers, consumers, and Wal-mart; but it is not the vision Dillman had for the technology. It also confirms that the ROI at the DC's isn't there -- which again was a major thrust of the initiative early on. Finally, it confirms that using RFID to locate general merchandise among a sea of boxes in the back room doesn't work either. For example, cases in the box bailer waiting to be recycled continue to transmit data when the stock room is interrogated. A bit of a problem with no obvious solution. RFID does make sense for tracking P-O-P compliance, but that will fail to generate the kind of impact that Wal-Mart originally suggested by many orders of magnitude. RFID will be useful in retail and Wal-Mart blazed the trail, but their initiative as originally conceived has in fact fizzled. Why not redefine the initiative honestly and move on? Message threads
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