FAYETTEVILLE — Radio-frequency identification tags, once viewed primarily as a tool to more easily track inventory on the shelf and on pallets in stores’ backrooms and distribution centers, are finding their way into newterritory, representatives of retailers and manufacturers were told Wednesday.
The group was attending the RFID 2012 Forum at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. The campus is home to a new 20,000 square-foot RFID Research Center.
Increasingly, those gathered at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development were told, the tags are being used to track whether goods came from places where child labor is used in production - for example, in cotton fields.
Or the tags could help verify whether children’s clothing was certified lead-free.
“This RFID information could be phenomenal,” said Nicole Bevins, president of International Trade and Government Relations, a Washington lobbying firm.
She cited the documented practice of child labor in Uzbekistan, a nation in central Asia, as an example of practices that could be flagged.
“Those kids will sleep on cots in the fields,” she said.
RFID tags emit a signal that can be read by stationary readers or hand-held devices.
The retail trade, Bevins said, is seeing the next level of socially conscious groups seeking to have an effect on retailers’ supply chains.
Decisions on the cost of sourcing material for apparel can be made on a price difference of 1 cent, Bevins said, and some overseas suppliers are resisting the push to put 8-cent RFID tags on apparel items.
“This is an intensely competitive industry. It’s cutthroat,” she said.
Over the next eight to 10 years, environmental groups are expected to make a big push for suppliers to develop a more environmentally sustainable, or green, supply chain, which could be verified at least in part through use of RFID tags, she said.
Susan Flake, director of RFID Development for Motorola Solutions, said retailers typically do extensive inventory measurement in January and February. Come Christmas shopping season, she said, those figures may be off as much as 15 percent, resulting in many items being out of stock.
The use of RFID, she said, can significantly improve that number.
“You don’t want all the jeans [on-shelf] to be 28-28,” she said, adding that it’s not unusual that additional inventory is in the back “collecting dust.”
Brian Gibson, professor of supply-chain management at Auburn University, said that retailers, after a few years of “trying to stay alive,” have now shifted into growth mode and many are upgrading their technology.
“I wouldn’t say this is robust spending, but they’re certainly loosening up the pocketbook a bit,” he said.
Business, Pages 25 on 09/13/2012