Can RFID Help Us Automate the Process of Separating Clothing Sizes?

We are a dye house currently producing 500,000 finished garments monthly, and we are growing rapidly. We have a requirement to automate our current manual size-separation process after dying and prior to packing. Can any of your experts orient us as to whether RFID is the right solution for us?

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The challenge with separating sizes is clothing items all look the same. Tagging the items with RFID transponders would make it easy to quickly identify similar items of different sizes. However, you need to find a consultant or systems integrator who can come in and look at your processes to determine whether RFID would be a cost-effective way to do this. I don’t know if there is a machine or robot that would be able to separate the items the way workers do now.

Also, I would highly recommend looking at your entire operations to see where tagging could deliver value. Tags cost roughly 5 US cents. Tagging 500,000 items a month would cost $25,000 each month. It’s unlikely you will save that much in labor required for separating the items. But if there are additional benefits during manufacturing and shipping, perhaps there would be enough savings to give you a return on investment.

Mark Roberti
Founder and Editor
RFID Journal