Retail Supply Chain

To maximize sales opportunities, retailers need to make sure that the right product is on the shelf and available for the customer at the right time. Using ItemSight for Item-level RFID applications can help retailers address this age-old problem while improving inventory and replenishment processes, increasing visibility into shrink, and automating tasks to reduce labor costs. Inadequate stocking levels translate into missed opportunities and sales

Inventory Visibility in the Supply Chain Value to Retailers

• Boost revenue and customer satisfaction by reducing stock outs
• Provide vendors with real-time visibility of inventory in the supply chain, improving forecast accuracy and damping the inventory whipsaw effect
• Reduce inventory exposure, ageing and working capital requirements

The Application:

• Track packaged goods from factory to retail floor
• Product is automatically registered as it passes through RFID-equipped dock doors and thruways, providing location information
• Empty case boxes and RPCs are captured as they leave the store floor, indicating usage while overstocking to ensure that the right product is available at the right time leads to excessive capital requirements that can reduce profitability. Product availability is a significant factor in customer satisfaction and loyalty - industry studies reveal that consumers are likely to switch retail stores if they experience out-of-stock items just two or three times

In-Store Inventory Management - Items Value to Retailers:

• RFID will significantly reduce cost, and time required for physical inventory. The time it takes to do physical inventory is reduced by 90% from several man days to a fraction of a day . RFID will not only enabled lower costs, but also enable more frequent counts. The resulting RFID based inventory is more accurate
• Eliminate stock-outs of product categories with high SKU count such as apparel and books, leading to improved revenue, and customer satisfaction

The Application:

• RFID-enabled physical inventory and search using ItemSight Mobile.
• Using an RFID hand held computer with ItemSight will allow users to count inventory by simply waving the handheld across merchandising shelves. Additionally ItemSight can perform searches to locate specific products within seconds

Asset Tracking

Value to Retailers:

• Find lost assets and boost capital efficiency by reducing the number of assets required to support the business process
• Ensure accurate billing for pooled assets like pallets

The Application:

• Track reusable plastic containers (RPCs), pallets, roll cages and other assets as they move through the supply chain or within a closed loop material handling process
• Assets are automatically registered as they pass through RFID-equipped dock doors and thruways, providing location information

ItemSight

ItemSight consists of a suite of applications that have been developed on a highly scalable, services oriented architecture platform from Microsoft, designed specifically to deliver flexibility, ease of integration, and an RFID integration framework at the lowest possible total cost of ownership. 

The platform consists of the following Microsoft server products: 

• SQL Server
• Windows OS and Windows Mobile
• BizTalk Server 

The ItemSight platform facilitates the interaction with the physical world via RFID and other devices including RFID readers, Tag printers, and other sensor devices.  

ItemSight can expand from small deployments to distributed Auto-ID and sensor installations that can be managed across multiple locations. It enables organizations to centrally manage, monitor, configure, and provision business logic and aggregate data across the enterprise from a Web-based dashboard. Companies can track orders, assets, and equipment in real time, and address process exceptions anywhere in the world.

The ItemSight suite delivers capabilities to solve item-level, event driven, process centric business problems across multiple vertical markets.  ItemSight applications address the management of assets, inventory and processes with the following common shared modules:

• Transaction Management
• Asset and Inventory Management
• Analytics and Reporting
• Event Management and Resolution
• Workflow Management
• SOA  and enterprise integration
• User Interaction
• RFID device integration

The unique architecture of ItemSight enables companies to invest slowly in RFID and derive a ROI at all stages of adoption.