RFID Journal and EPCglobal North America have announced they will jointly produce an EPC Compliance and Benefits Training seminar in conjunction with RFID Journal LIVE! 2008, RFID Journal’s sixth annual conference and exhibition, being held April 16-18 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
The seminar will take place on April 16, and is intended to educate suppliers to Sam’s Club and other major retailers not only about how to place EPC tags on shipments, but also how to integrate tagging systems with back-end inventory management systems to save time and labor. In addition, the seminar will explain how to use the EPC data provided by retail partners to reduce out-of-stocks, increase promotions execution and drive business value.
Prior to the start of the seminar, suppliers will meet with Sam’s Club representatives to discuss the retailer’s Electronic Product Code (EPC) initiative (see Sam’s Club Tells Suppliers to Tag or Pay). Sam’s Club suppliers can attend the EPC Compliance and Benefits Training seminar for free; other companies that wish to attend can select the seminar as one of 11 preconferences offered at the event.
“RFID Journal is committed to helping companies benefit from RFID technologies, so we feel its important to offer training to help people understand where the value is and how to realize it,” says Mark Roberti, founder and editor of RFID Journal. “We’ll bring in end users who have been tagging shipments, and have them explain not just how they did it, but also how they are benefiting from EPC technology.”
The seminar will explain how to encode tags and associate EPCs with the correct product, place a tag on a case in the best location to maximize its chances of being read, integrate an EPC tagging system with a back-end inventory management system, and use EPC data to improve supply chain operations.
“This really is a unique opportunity to learn a great deal in a very short period of time,” says John Seaner, president of EPCglobal North America. “We’re working with our subscribers from the vendor community to provide a checklist of what suppliers need to do, and then they can go to the exhibit hall and meet the vendors who can fulfill their needs.”
Among the speakers who will participate in the seminar are:
• Bill Hardgrave, director of the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas
• Paul Freeman, director of Best Buy‘s EPC/RFID program
• Richard Ulrich, solutions architect at Wal-Mart Stores
• J. Kevin Brown, director of Daisy Brand‘s information systems
• Sue Hutchison, product manager at EPCglobal North America
• Michele Southall, EPCglobal North America’s director of community development
Prior to RFID Journal LIVE! 2008, EPCglobal will hold a Joint Action Group meeting—a gathering of members from all action groups contributing to the development of EPCglobal standards. What’s more, in conjunction with LIVE! 2008, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers will hold its IEEE RFID 2008 conference, the second in a series of annual events dedicated to addressing technical and policy challenges in the area of RFID technologies, as well as showing support for large-scale distributed information systems and applications.