Nov 22, 2006__Bell Canada, together with its partners and a consortium of companies making up the Supply Chain Network Project (SCN), have published the results of an end-to-end RFID/EPC pilot project in Canada.

The RFID-enabled supply chain pilot allowed the consortium of retailers, suppliers, and logistics companies to explore how RFID can be used within their retail eco-system to enable them to reduce costs, and increase productivity. skk12 This article is copyright 2006 UsingRFID.com.

Shipping efficiency
The analysis of the pilot data showed that Staples was able to reduce the amount of time required to process shipments received at both its RFID-enabled delivery centre and store location, while recording a near 100% processing of all RFID orders. This was achieved through the use of RFID-tagged pallets, cases, and items in combination with RFID readers to receive them at selected Staples locations rather than conventionally manually scanning bar codes upon receipt.

Participating in this pilot was a great leap forward for Staples Business Depot and with these results a great step forward for the retail industry, said Joe Soares, Director, Process Engineering for STAPLES Business Depot. We now know that the savings can be significant in a number of areas."

Please with results
Jeff Ashcroft, who developed and facilitated the SCN Pilot Project commented Overall the SCN Group is very pleased with the receiving accuracy and productivity improvements identified through this pilot by utilizing RFID and the end-to-end Supply Chain Network Project Process. These results are even more gratifying since they were achieved on a variety of mixed pallet shipments and because the pilot was run in a real world "hands off" mode following completion of significant advance product data synchronization and in depth RFID, ASN and Dashboard calibration. Bell's commitment and RFID expertise on this project was a determining factor in our ability to successfully deploy this solution.

Pilot results quantified
The observed results of the pilot programme included:

Potential for significant productivity savings (labour);
Average store receiving time was reduced by 85% (17.75 minutes reduced to 2.7 minutes per pallet);
Average Delivery Centre receiving time was reduced by approximately 50% (5.36 minutes reduced to 2.65 minutes per pallet);
Increased dock throughput at both the Delivery Centre and Store level;
Increased product selling days;
Product moved faster onto the sales floor;
An average read accuracy of 97.41% of all RFID tagged product (including both mixed and solid SKU pallets on a pallet, case and item level);
The high read rate resulted in actual retail unit receiving accuracy of 99.2% across both pilot locations.

Good news
The result of this pilot is good news for Bell, the SCN, and for businesses across Canada, said Paul Rowe, Vice President, Enterprise Solutions, Bell Canada. These results clearly show that businesses can benefit from improved efficiencies and increased productivity by integrating next generation technology such as RFID and that Bell's ICT practice can help take them to it.

The SCN is made up of leading organisations including, STAPLES Business Depot, Unisource, UPS Supply Chain Solutions, ACCO Brands Canada Inc., Fellowes Canada and WIS International. The pilot involved two suppliers (ACCO and Unisource), one third-party logistics company (UPS Supply Chain Solutions), one Staples Business Depot delivery centre, and one retail location, and encompassed pallet, case and item level tagging using the EPC Gen2 standard. RFID scan and ship software was used at the supplier locations and 3PL to RFID enable the shipped product.

Bell's partners on this project included RFID middleware provider Shipcom Wireless, tag and interrogator provider Symbol Technologies, RFID label advisor and converter Marnlen RFiD, RFID Printer Manufacturer Zebra Technologies, and event-management software from Descartes.