中文版 Chinese version

Roughly 1,000 attendees headed to Phoenix, Arizona this year for the GS1 Connect conference. The JW Marriot Desert Ridge provided a convenient and relaxed environment where retailers, suppliers and solution providers mingled for three days. I attended a number of sessions on the conference program and here are my highlights from select speakers.

GS1 USA: RFID Is Not a Retailer Story, but More a Supply Chain Story

The theme of the whole Connect 2018 “Accelerate” refers to the universal demand to react on customer demands faster and faster. As Dr. Brian Gibson of the Auburn University put it in his presentation: the traditional “fast or free” is today understood by consumers as “fast and free”. This obviously inflicts extreme performance, efficiency and accuracy requirements on the supply chains.

As I look at this from the RFID perspective, GS1 is doing a good job in driving the RFID adoption. At the AGM Initiative Open Meeting Mr. Patrick Javick explained that technology adoption is currently facilitated in a peer-to-peer format to openly address the issues between the trading partners – underlining the fact that the benefits of RFID are essentially spread throughout the supply chain.

This also raises the question of data ownership and sharing. In his key note Mr. Bob Carpenter, the President and CEO of GS1 USA, explained how everything will be connected, and how for businesses protecting the product identity is equally important as protecting our personal identity.

Herman Kay: RFID Makes Us a Better Supplier

Mr. Richard Haig of Herman Kay Company, Mr. Bill Connell of Macy’s and Mr. Coby Sparks of J. Reneé Company joined forces to talk about the 10 ways to reduce friction in the supply chain.

From the Supplier point of view the RFID enabled improvements in Shipping Accuracy are substantial. Mr. Haig summarized that the utilization of RFID in outbound shipment validation makes Herman Kay a better supplier for their customers. The way I’m hearing this is that the better Supplier enjoys more business – and less chargebacks.

Macy’s Is Leveraging Their Superior RFID Tagging Coverage

Macy’s has been a beacon-like forerunner in building and eventually enjoying the benefits of shop floor inventory accuracy based on RFID. They have 100% RFID coverage of merchandise from their private brands, as well as 73% of vendor brands. According to Mr. Connell Macy’s is already gearing towards to enhance Omni-Channel Fulfillment even more, and there will be enhanced personalized experience to delight the consumers in the future.

In a separate session Mrs. Pam Sweeney explained how Asset Protection is a domain that the RFID-based data is currently dramatically reshaping. There is a vast pool of added value leverage in core business processes that Macy’s is additionally looking to address, such as financial inventory.

Dillard’s Found DC Inbound Process Gaining Efficiencies

According to Mr. Chuck Lasley, the Director of Application Development, Dillard’s is seeing quantified benefits by utilizing a tunnel reader in one of their distribution centers. The tunnel verifies inbound shipment content against Advance Shipment Notice (ASN). Only packages that don’t show the expected content are routed to manual audit.

The RFID based inbound process is shown to be 3-4 times faster than the old manual process! Impressed of this pilot result and generally motivated by the experiences of other retailers, Dillard’s currently says they’re going to be mandating RFID tagging on first product categories within the next 18 months.

Project Zipper Quantifies Immediate Business Value for Suppliers Especially

The Auburn University RFID Lab is collaborating with selected retailers and suppliers in the Project Zipper. As Mr. Justin Patton, the ARC Lab Director, explained, the project participants share their UPC barcode and EPC RFID data on shipments across the supply chain. The data streams are then analysed to find and understand discrepancies.

The Project Zipper 1st phase report will be published soon, but the early results already show that there is a lot in the supply chains that will change as trading partners shift focus from SKU quantities to item level tracking. As the project findings are confirmed and data sharing across supply chains improved accordingly, one frequent discussion topic that many anticipate to fundamentally change tones is chargebacks.

NXP Perspective: RFID Will Be an Integral Part of the Product

Mr. Nigel Stott spoke about NXP’s consumer driven approach on RFID, where RFID-enabled items bring convenience to shopping. Mobile checkouts at the shelf removes the need to line up for the checkout counters: Grab – Tap – Go! Sounds great, and is so for the retailer too, because in NXP’s view the in-store mobile payment ensures 100% engagement in loyalty programs.

Mr. Stott also mentioned sustainability. As the tag will be an integral part of the retail item, the tag life time will be the same as the product life time. This opens up a whole new range of possibilities for more intelligent home appliances, such as washing machines. I’m thinking further to producer liability, recycling and circular economy, which is a rising priority on the European side of the Atlantic.

Words of Wisdom

As a Finn I was suprised and delighted during the day 3 as Dr. Tricia Wang quoted the former EU Commissioner Erkki Liikanen while talking about “Winning the Data Revolution”.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this events or its topics, do let us know!

Dear Santa,

I saw you at the shopping mall just the other day but you were occupied with other business, so I left you alone. I’ll give you ten points for the impressive entourage!

How has year 2017 been for you? Good funnel and outlook for 2018, or is that still too far away to say?

Me? Thanks, family is good, the dog and the house as well. However, as the next year is again just around the corner, I really wanted to write you this letter from the RAIN man’s perspective.

Please Help Retain the Talents

Both in your organization and ours it’s only natural that people come and go. I mean, it must be hard for your little helpers to keep those huge inventories accurate and muscle around all the odd-shaped packages, such as pianos and snowmobiles! Some of them surely get tired and steer their careers towards less seasonal operations. It’s the same at our end, with the difference ours is a little less seasonal and our helpers are taller than yours. The mileage is rough for both.

Talent pool in the RAIN business is still scarce, and it takes time to train the new superheroes. With that said, as we both need to keep our operations efficient and scalable, I would very much hope for two things:

1. Keep the best talent motivated, committed and in-house
2. Endorse standard procedures (or de-facto standard, as your chimney entrance)

Please Just Give Us One Name to Work With

Radio Frequency Identification went by the name RFID for a long while, but it seems we’ve run out of space under the same umbrella with so many very different technologies: LF, HF and UHF. First came NFC Forum and rebranded a hefty part of the portfolio. After a while RAIN Alliance was established to nurture UHF RFID under a new brand, RAIN. However, not all the stakeholders got onboard the RAIN train, which means plenty of branding confusion especially in the retail-domain, where EPC numbering brand by GS1 further complicates communication.

Please, let there be light, co-operation and goodwill among all the stakeholders, and show them the way. We saw GS1 and RAIN shake hands already in Lille in February 2017, they should just get the puzzle finally completed:

Please Supply RAIN Smartphones for Teenagers

Many seasoned RAIN-believers start to attract shades of gray at their temples. I’ve recently been told I’m among them. It’s not that we wouldn’t be as bright and innovative as always, but the youngsters think and act differently.
I’d like to see teenagers inject some craziness into our industry.

After a decade of waiting, could you finally come up with a reasonably priced RAIN enabled smartphone with fair battery capacity that we could give for them? Good things would happen. And I want one, too!

Please do not brand the phone “tubular”.

Please Show E=mc² for RAIN

On the component level, after a decade of hard work, we have the basic performance metrics for both RAIN tagged items (TIPP) and readers (reader sensitivity testing). Please show everybody how the system level performance can be reasonably estimated based on those performance metrics! I mean the environment is a difficult variable, but on your discretion, just define a new variable , like you gave the speed of light “c” for Albert Einstein.

That’s all! Travel safe, protect yourself against frostbites and watch out for those house-securing-bulldogs. Stay hydrated as well – I know the costume doesn’t ventilate too well.