While large-scale deployments of RFID systems in UK retail supply chains have not yet occurred, point solutions for use in local distribution and in stores are increasing in number.
Two more positive stories have come to light in the past week to back this up. Carphone Warehouse has been among the first visitors to standards body GS1 UK’s recently opened RFID testing centre.
The facility, which is hosted at RFID systems integrator Intellident’s Cheshire base, both showcases and allows testing of RFID technology from a variety of suppliers.
The mobile phone retailer was impressed with what it saw. “The centre is an excellent way for companies to see RFID in action, rather than just reading about it,” said Carphone Warehouse head of warehouse operations Shaun Tymon. “It provides a safe testing ground to understand how it works and we certainly took a lot of ideas back on how it could potentially be applied to our particular business.”
Work on a similar facility by GS1 in Germany is reported to have been of great assistance to Metro as it has forged ahead with the use of RFID in its supply chain.
At the same time, another demonstration centre – the European Centre for Excellence for AIDC (automatic identification and data capture) – opened in Halifax on Monday.
At the opening, mobile computing supplier Skillweb demonstrated an RFID system that is already in use by the Co-operative Group. The system tracks valuable stock such as cigarettes, alcohol and other big-ticket items.
Both these facilities have been set up to overcome the hype and following myths about what RFID can and cannot do. While it is not as simple to achieve a return on investment as the RFID suppliers would have had us believe three or four years ago, neither is it impossible.
It’s got to be worth a half-day trip to either Cheshire or Yorkshire to get the real story on RFID.
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