In France, the retailing company METRO Cash & Carry and DHL Supply Chain have put into practice an RFID system to optimize the tracking, loading and control of incoming goods. DHL equips the pallets designated for METRO with RFID tags, reads the data and sends a notification to the recipient outlets.
In contrast to the conventional monitoring by means of a manual barcode scanner with visual control, the contactless RFID process leads to greater loading and unloading speeds. The control of incoming goods is no longer necessary. The automated reading also increases the precision of the logistics processes while at the same time the improved data base provides greater visibility and manageability of the logistics processes. Interferences can be quickly recognized. This way, METRO saves time and expenses.
Since autumn 2008, RFID is now employed extensively for deliveries of beverages and dry foods to a total of 89 Cash & Carry self-service wholesale outlets. To this end DHL has reorganized the inventory administration of 5 warehouses and annually transports approximately 1.3 million tagged pallets. With this rollout Deutsche Post DHL is demonstrating: “RFID is ready to be put into practice.” Based on this cooperation, RFID applications are now conceivable for a wider range of retailing customers.
In Sony’s central European warehouse in Tilburg/NL, pallets and cases are provided with RFID transponders for the purpose of tracking and theft prevention. The security aspect plays a particularly important part in the case of valuable electronic merchandise. RFID technology offers a decisive advantage here: simplified logging and therefore better monitoring of the inventories.
In cooperation with DHL, RFID applications are about to be expanded to bring this technology into operation throughout the entire supply chain. A five-month pilot project proved to be very successful and for this reason the migration process has joined in the DHL Freight Hub Cologne as a central gateway entry point for the distribution of Sony products in Germany. The RFID infrastructure thus created will present very promising possibilities for use by yet more customers from the sector as well.
Using an internal pilot project, the DHL Innovation Center investigated the potential savings and the feasibility of radio frequency identification (RFID) in transport and inventory administration for the textile industry. The object of this study was the corporate wear of DHL, which is being manufactured in 39 locations globally.
About 1.6 million items for the use in the European market arrive annually at the central distribution point in Hamburg. Because of the requirements for a duty free bonded warehouse, the content of every box must be examined on item level for completeness (size and color codes). All incidental activities in the warehouse management such as control of incoming goods, commissioning processes, completeness checks as well as the shipping of tagged goods were safely and successfully conducted. Ultra high frequency (UHF) as well as high frequency (HF) solutions were tested.
With this obvious speeding up of processes, the pilot project has provided clear proof of the applicability of RFID for textile logistics. The RFID infrastructure thus developed is now ready to be used for other customers in the sector.
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