A wireless technology is changing the face of supply chain and customer
delight at stores of Wills Lifestyle. After 9 months of speculation,
ITC Lifestyle cracked the physics of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) at
item level, which markedly improved inventory velocity at the supply-chain and
also customer service.
To its blend of style and fashion, Wills Lifestyle has now added a technology
enabler, the RFID. Deployed across 7 retail showrooms and 2 warehouses, the
project is reaping benefits to internal business users as well as external
customers (consumers). RFID proved its mettle in terms of speeding up of
existing processes, reducing the time-to-market, efficient material handling,
and accuracy of books vs. physical stock.The impact of RFID can be chalked out
at the frontend (showrooms) and backend (warehouse).
The Inception
The RFID journey began in Dec 2006 at the Mandoli warehouse of LRBD
(Lifestyle Retail Business Division). During pilot, variety of RFID tags and
RFID readers and antennae were tested to achieve the stated objectives of pilot.
Various systems such as RFID tunnels were conceptualized and got fabricated
during the pilot to arrive on the final project components. Two RFID tunnel
systems were placed in each warehouse, which were geared up to be used for both
receive and dispatch, as per requirement and load factor. Each tunnel enabled
the reading of about 15000 pcs using three workers.
Before and Now
During the bar-code era, each piece of garment was individually scanned and
lots of manpower was involved, also at the end of the day accuracy of stocks
received/dispatched at the warehouse was a key concern. With RFID in place the
time taken to receive 1 carton (about 30--35 garments) was reduced from about
5--8 min to about 20--30 sec. With the usage of RFID tunnels, the output per
person increased from 300--400 pcs per day to about 2000--3000 pcs per day.
Reduced scanning time enabled faster receiving and dispatch of merchandize,
thereby reducing the time to market. Thus an extra 10--15 day window is
available during the year, leading to increased contribution to the business by
1--2%.
B.E.
Q What were the challenges Q What were the key |
Owing to increased inventory velocity in the supply chain, the merchandize
now sits for a lesser time in the warehouse, thereby eliminating the need for
additional warehouse space over the next 3 years, than the need now. More so,
about 20% of the non-saleable returns from the stores were attributed to the
reason of mishandling at the warehouse. With the project in action, since the
physical handling at the warehouse is reduced, the percentage of non-saleable
garments have reduced considerably. With unique identity of each tag, and faster
reconciliation, the magnitude of manual errors was greatly reduced. (Assuming a
0.1% error rate on overall movement of goods of 3 lacs pcs per month).
At the frontend too RFID palyed a significant role: the scanning time at PoS
has been reduced from about 3--4 sec per garment, to 2 sec for any number of
garments in the basket. This helped in faster billing, reduced queues at the
store especially during EOSS, and greater customer satisfaction. The consumers
see benefit in terms of quicker check outs and no more standing in the queues
for billing.
Project Architecture | |
The potential for RFID to deliver tangible benefits in terms of improved
retail productivity, reduced out-of-stock, improved inventory management,
reduced shrinkage and theft, reduced supply chain errors, etc, gave ITC WillsLifestyle
the magical answer.
In years to come
RFID is an innovative technology which is going to stay for years to come, as it
brings in lots of benefits to traditional supply chain and customer facing apps.
The very nature of the technology opens up avenues for many more apps and its
widesp read usage.