Joint RFID/EPC Apparel project on its way

RFIDLab Finland is building a joint RFID/EPC Apparel project together with the apparel manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, and logistics providers who have operations in Finland. The objective of the project is to boost the diffusion of RFID/EPC technology in apparel business in Finland. The players will be educated so that they are ready for RFID/EPC deployment with sufficient technical and related business skills. The project participants can take full advantage in their own operations and are able to create consumer benefit.

Taking RFID/EPC into use in a company is a rational decision preceded by knowledge gathering, research and testing. For decision making the company needs to understand the technology, its demployment requirements, investments, benefits and payback time.

In retail RFID/EPC is diffusing little by little. Apparel is currently seen as the entry point to the item level automated identification in retail in general. It will also be visible for the consumer and improve the shopping experience and most likely the after sales within time too.

A joint project before going to production piloting and deployment by apparel manufacturers and retailers is justified. Consider the history with barcodes: for all the major chains in Finland it would be extremely clumsy and inefficient to have all the products equipped with three different barcodes with different data payloads. In the global environment the situation would be even worse.

RFID/EPC and its best practices in a fundamental identification technology that should be unified. When the whole value network is to be optimized a single operator with a limited amount of customers simply cannot create uniformed and commonly agreed practices for the whole industry.  

More information: http://www.rfidlab.fi/apparel-rfidepc-project ja http://www.rfidlab.fi/blogi/rfidepc-technology-apparel

 Apparel RFID/EPC workshop 31st of August 2011