Ready and Waiting
Most large WMS providers have begun offering RFID-enabled versions of their WMS software. "Somewhere between 75 percent and 80 percent of WMS systems can store EPC data," says Philip Obal, president of Industrial Data & Information, an Ohio-based WMS consultancy. "As soon as EPC made the news, most WMS companies realized they'd need to start handling EPC data, and a lot of them jumped on the bandwagon."

Companies won't realize the full benefits of integrating RFID with their WMS until they start tagging goods at the point of manufacture and receiving tagged cases in their warehouse or DC.

Some have built the RFID capabilities straight into their WMS, while others provide it as a bolt-on solution that runs on a separate server. HighJump, a 3M company based in Eden Prairie, Minn., offers an upgrade to its Warehouse Advantage WMS platform that enables RFID integration. Manhattan Associates, headquartered in Atlanta, offers RFID integration through its RFID in a Box platform. RedPrairie, based in Waukesha, Wis., sells an RFID-enabled version of its WMS, DLx Warehouse. Enterprise resource planning software providers that also sell WMS programs, such as Oracle and SAP, now offer RFID-enabled WMS options.

Central to the function of all of these platforms is a middleware component that filters, translates and routes EPC numbers between the RFID interrogators and the WMS. Some WMS vendors partner with Acsis, BEA Systems, GlobeRanger, OATSystems and other providers of RFID device middleware. Other WMS vendors, such as Manhattan Associates, have developed their own middleware.

End users that have upgraded their WMS platforms to process EPC data are slow to leverage the new capabilities. Greg Gilbert, Manhattan Associates' director of RFID solutions and strategy, says 40 percent of Manhattan Associates' customers that are tagging goods have upgraded their WMS to process EPC data, but most of those are only testing the integration capabilities on a few stock-keeping units. "The biggest limiting factor is scale," says Gilbert. "Most are just tagging a small selection of SKUs in a few locations. The more SKUs these suppliers have to tag, the more they are going to look at switching to RFID-enabled WMS software."

Tom Kozinski, vice president of product marketing for warehouse management and distribution at RedPrairie, says that companies need configurability in their WMS because they'll likely transition into RFID slowly, starting with a slap-and-ship process that is slightly integrated with their WMS. These companies will also want to make sure that their WMS can track and cross-reference bar codes with EPCs, because they'll likely be dealing with a mixed environment of bar-coded and RFID-tagged goods for years to come.

"There's no one-size-fits-all solution," says Kozinski. "So software has to support these different approaches—and in some cases support all of them simultaneously for the same end user."

Depending on whether a company buys an upgrade to its existing WMS or opts for a new system, an RFID-enabled WMS can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000, according to Marlo Brooke, president of consulting services firm Avatar Partners, based in Irvine, Calif.