Much has been written about Marks & Spencer's success with its 'intelligent labelling' of clothes in its stores. Now over in the US, American Apparel is going down the same RFID route.
Motorola's Enterprise Mobility business, together with Vue Technology and Avery Dennison are behind the solution in which American Apparel, best known for its “Made in Downtown LA” clothing will roll out RFID at item-level across each of its 17 stores in the New York area over the next three months, and eventually to an additional 120 North American locations.
The technology incorporates Motorola’s fixed and mobile RFID readers and antennas, TrueVUE hardware and software products, and tags and printers from Avery Dennison.
The solution will enable American Apparel to track individual items as they are tagged at the company’s manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, received in its retail stores, stored in the stock rooms at the stores, and then placed onto the sales floor and ultimately sold at the point-of-sale (POS).
The first roll-out took place at the company’s Columbia University location in New York and to date, over 40,000 individual pieces of merchandise have been tagged so that store personnel can use fixed and mobile RFID readers to track inventory on a real-time basis, ultimately meaning the store is well-stocked and leading to improved information for customers about in-store merchandise.
By using an item-level RFID system, American Apparel expects to be able to offer is merchandise in every size and colour on store floors at all times. It says replenishment activities have been dramatically improved resulting in on-floor availability at over 99%. Weekly inventory processes can now be accomplished with just two people in two hours instead of requiring four people for eight hours as previously needed.
The technologies used:
Motorola: MC9090-G RFID handheld readers for “cycle counting” and XR440 fixed readers with AN480 antennas track stock moving from the backroom to the sales floor.
Vue: TrueVUE Site Manager, Enterprise Manager, Essentials, Essentials Mobile, Commissioning, and Exchange to provide the enterprise-wide device and network management, desktop and mobile workflows, EPC commissioning, and developer interfaces to RFID.
Avery Dennison: AD-222 tags
Dr. Bill Hardgrave, professor of Information Systems and the executive director of the Information Technology Research Institute at the University of Arkansas, which specialises in tracking end-user RFID usage said, "We’ve noticed an increasing trend among retailers that are implementing RFID at the item-level, and American Apparel is a prime example of a retailer on the forefront of this trend. With RFID technology, American Apparel will be able to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their supply chain, ultimately resulting in the right products in the right place at the right time and an enhancement of the overall customer experience.”
Technorati tags: American Apparel Motorola Vue Technology Avery Dennison Marks & Spencer
