Item Level Tagging for Apparel and Footwear: Feasibility Assessment Under the direction of: Bill Hardgrave (faculty) Deb Armstrong (faculty) David Cromhout

Item Level Tagging for Apparel and Footwear: Feasibility Assessment

Under the direction of: Bill Hardgrave (faculty)Deb Armstrong (faculty)

David Cromhout (lab)

Note: this document is copyrighted ( 2007) and confidential; do not distribute or cite without explicit permission.

Project Overview

• Assess the feasibility of using passive UHF tags on item-level apparel and footwear– Primarily apparel/footwear– Primarily store level

• Phase I: use cases and feasibility assessment– May 1 through August 1

• Phase II: extension of phase I and/or field trials– August 15 through December 15

• Today’s discussion: Phase I

Use Cases

Product lifecycle management Trace through supply chain

Inventory management Cycle counting / PI accuracy Misplaced stock

Shrinkage Where is it disappearing? Use as security device

Dressing room management Putback mountain

Point of saleX Price change management

Items

Read

ers

Stati

cStatic Mobile

Mob

ile

Test Scenario II:

-smart shelf

-point of sale

Test Scenario I:

-clothes on rounder, on z-bar, in box, on shelf, on peg board, in pile

- shoes on shelf

Test Scenario III:

- z-bar; boxes on handcart, hand-carried, on conveyor, on steel cart

Not tested

Test Scenarios

Test Scenarios / Use Cases

•Product Life Cycle Management

•Inventory Management

•Shrinkage

•Dressing Room Management

•Point of Sale

•Test scenario I: mr/si•Clothes on rounder, z-bar, shelf, etc.

•Test scenario II: sr/si•Smart shelf, point of sale

•Test scenario III: sr/mi•z-bar, handcart, conveyor, etc.

Premise

• 3 tag types

• 4 mobile readers: 3 handheld, 1 non-handheld

• 3 static readers

• Tags placed over existing price tags

• Fixtures merchandised by retailing group on campus

• Realistic environment

Items

Read

ers

Stati

cStatic Mobile

Mob

ile

Test Scenario II:

-smart shelf

-point of sale

Test Scenario I:


- shoes on shelf

Test Scenario III:


Not tested

Test Scenarios

Test Scenario I

Test Description: Rounder

• Mobile readers used to read clothes on rounder

• Varied number of clothes, tag, reader

• Findings: achieve 100% up to 160 items

Test Scenario I

Test Description: z-bar

• Mobile readers used to read clothes on z-bar



Test Scenario I

Test Description: box

• Mobile readers used to read clothes in box



Test Scenario I

Test Description: shelf

• Mobile readers used to read clothes on shelf

• Varied tag, reader; items fixed

• Findings: achieve almost 100% with 145 items

Test Scenario I

Test Description: peg board

• Mobile readers used to read clothes on pegs


• Findings: achieve 100% with 44 items

Test Scenario I

Test Description: putback mountain

• Mobile readers used to read clothes in putback mountain



Test Scenario I

Test Description: shoes on shelf

• Mobile readers used to read shoes on shelf


• Findings: achieve 100% with 39 pairs of shoes

Test Scenario I

Test Description: non-handheld strapped to handcart

• Varied fixtures, tag; items fixed on fixture

• Findings: achieve 100% on multiple fixture types (fourway, etc.) up to 107 items

Uses Cases / Insights

• Inventory management: Cycle counting, items in wrong place, find merchandise

• Dressing room: return to shelf

• Demonstrated effectiveness• Efficiency (on rounder w/ 97 pieces):

– 9 minutes with barcode

– 2.5 minutes with RFID

Items

Read

ers

Stati

cStatic Mobile

Mob

ile

Test Scenario II:

-smart shelf

-point of sale

Test Scenario I:


- shoes on shelf

Test Scenario III:


Not tested

Test Scenarios

Test Scenario II

Test Description: Smart shelf

• Ran several purchasing scenarios

• Findings: smart shelf performed very well in keeping a real-time inventory

Test Scenario II

Test Description: Point of sale

• Varied number of clothes, tag

• Findings: read tags in field perfectly; did not read tags outside field


• Inventory management: Cycle counting in real time, items in wrong place, find merchandise

• Shrinkage: e.g., detect missing items from cabinet

• Point of sale: works well

• Demonstrated effectiveness

Items

Read

ers

Stati

cStatic Mobile

Mob

ile

Test Scenario II:

-smart shelf

-point of sale

Test Scenario I:


- shoes on shelf

Test Scenario III:


Not tested

Test Scenarios

Test Scenario III

Test Description: z-bar transport

• Static portals (10 feet)



Test Scenario III

Test Description: boxes on handcart




Test Scenario III

Test Description: boxes on steel cart


• Varied tag, reader


Test Scenario III

Test Description: hand-carried boxes




Test Scenario III

Test Description: boxes on conveyor

• Static portals

• Varied tag, reader, speed of conveyor; items fixed

• Findings: achieve 100% with 36 items at 200fpm (degrades with speed)

Test Scenario III

Test Description: mixed pallet of CPG items

• Static portals

• Mixed pallet of 118 items from 10 categories

• Findings: read rates near 90%


• Product lifecycle management: trace movement of product through supply chain

• Dressing room management: movement in and out of dressing rooms

• Shrinkage: alert of exactly what is stolen; discovery of shrinkage locations

• Demonstrated effectiveness

• Tag shadowing

Overall Insights

• Wide range of read rates based on tag / reader combo

• Tag type especially important

• Tag place probably plays a role; perhaps a need for guidelines or standards?

• Read rates degrade with number of items

• Type of clothes did not matter (caveat: with the suite of clothes we had in stock)

Next Steps

• Expand Phase I to include additional tests and/or products– and/or –

• (Phase II) Pilot test specific uses cases / test scenarios in one or more stores or DCs

• Phase III: examination of real costs/benefits

Bill Hardgrave

[email protected]

479.575.6099

http://itri.uark.edu

For copies of white papers, visit

http://itri.uark.edu/research

Keyword: RFID

Documents

Item Level Tagging for Apparel and Footwear: Feasibility Assessment Under the direction of: Bill Hardgrave (faculty) Deb Armstrong (faculty) David Cromhout