The internal closed loop [has been more successful] because there are internal controls. You can use RFID the way you want to. The issue when a manufacturer tags something that goes to a retailer is that you don't know what that retail environment is going to be, so there are issues around tag readability. You have to follow standards because someone else is going to be reading your product, whereas in your four walls you can do what you want and set your tags up the way you want. |
When Wal-Mart and others issued mandates, the whole consumer products industry marched to the same drummer, and it spawned a whole industry [of RFID vendors]. The problem was there wasn't a whole lot of value, and there was a lot of backlash. Now we're starting to see a very subtle shift, from tagging everything now to a lot of specific item-level tagging. |
With this internal process within your four walls or your four facilities, you have complete control over how a product is being tagged and read. Those have been more successful than CP [consumer products]-to-retailer kind of examples that don't really have a business case. |