Wal-Mart Expands RFID Mandate

RFID Journal ^ | 8-17-03

[PatrioticCowboy]

Wal-Mart Expands RFID Mandate

The world's largest retailer says that it will ask all suppliers to tag pallets and cases by the end of 2006.

Aug. 18, 2003 - If anyone still has any doubts that Wal-Mart is serious about deploying RFID technology in its supply chain, they should be dispelled by its latest revelation. The world's largest retailer says it will require all suppliers to put RFID tags carrying Electronic Product Codes on pallets and cases by the end of 2006.

"We have asked our 100 top suppliers to have product on pallets employing RFID chips and in cases with RFID chips," says Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams. "By 2006, we will roll it out with all suppliers."

Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart's CIO, publicly announced in June that the retailer would ask its top suppliers to tag pallets and cases beginning in January 2005 (see Wal-Mart Draws Line in the Sand). The news created a storm in the retail and consumer packaged goods industries.

Suppliers are still struggling to come to grips with what the requirement means for them. The Wal-Mart requirement was the hot topic at a recent trade association meeting attended by representatives from Johnson & Johnson, Kimberley Clark, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and others.

"The only consensus was that there's a lack of clarity of what it really means," says one executive who was present. "We are all a little worried that the technology has a way to go before it's robust enough to be implementable in a live distribution center environment.

And we worry about doing something before the technology is ready and possibly having something that's obsolete quite quickly."

The news that Wal-Mart is expanding the requirement to all of its suppliers might not cause the same tumult as the first announcement. That's because smaller suppliers may be able to move more quickly to tag their limited number of stock keeping units (SKU) than large suppliers, which may have hundreds of SKUs, each with different RF properties. And they have an extra year to learn how to deploy the technology for their own benefit.

Wal-Mart plans to hold a gathering for its suppliers in the fourth quarter to provide more details on how it expects them to tag pallets and cases. Some of the larger suppliers are concerned that the schedule doesn't leave them enough time to meet the January 2005 deadline.

"Wal-Mart has said they will define in greater detail what they mean in the fourth quarter, but that leaves us less than a year to do this," says a supply chain executive from one major manufacturing company. "Nobody is going to want to deploy new technologies in November and December, because that's the big selling season."

[Free Vulcan]

Dr. Engels that is.

[Free Vulcan]

Now that you have shifted your argument, I assume you now accept the veracity of the information?

This would also be a boon to a socialist govt wanting complete and total 'visibility' over the supply chain, and with the proper sister technology like smart chip cards, tracking of individual purchasing patterns, complete with face ID recognition in all public places.

Note this is being tested in England, that blooming epicenter of Orwellian societal control.

[sinkspur]

Now that you have shifted your argument, I assume you now accept the veracity of the information?

The veracity of what information? That a couple of drawings that are no longer on a website are accurate?

Absolutely not. Especially since this orginated with CASPIAN, an outfit with an agenda.

This would also be a boon to a socialist govt wanting complete and total 'visibility' over the supply chain, and with the proper sister technology like smart chip cards, tracking of individual purchasing patterns, complete with face ID recognition in all public places.

What paranoic nonsense. Nobody cares how much Charmin you buy!

[FourPeas]

The "types" we find entertaining are the incredibly paranoid groups who, among other things, think Gillette uses spy shelves to take pictures of people who pick-up their product.

[maxwellp]

I agree with you. What is RFID and what is its purpose?

[maxwellp]

Re your Post No. 6. Forgive me, but that doesn't help at all.

[Ford Fairlane]

This probably wont happen.

I can't name the company for business reasons, but one of the largest food suppliers to walmart, owner of the largest food warehouse in the US basically told walmart to go pound sand.

[TankerKC]

No. You can call him if you like. Why post the date? Is it significant in your mind?

[freekitty]

You never know.

[freekitty]

"That was Walgreen's camera."

Well, duh.

[Free Vulcan]

It didn't originate with Caspian, it originated with MIT. Caspian merely reporting it. The information is still on the Auto ID Center website if you bothered to do some research. What evidence do you have that they didn't originate from there, or are inaccurate?

Environmentalists care what I buy. You'd better research Smart Growth and the sustainable development movement and read what they think about our mass consumerism, and their recommendations on controlling the number and type of consumer goods in a more centrally planned economy. A technology like this would be right up their alley.

[Free Vulcan]

I take it that your collapse into ranting insinuations about my supposed mental state means you don't have a significant point to make? I don't usually keep debating someone when they sink into the cheap suit lawyer tactics.

[TankerKC]

No rant. No insinuation. No consideration of your mental state. I'm just asking. What is the significance of the date? What were we to learn from it?

[Free Vulcan]

And again, you repeat the same insinuation that I am a kook, after denying you are trying to make me look like a kook. You really need to leave that kind of stuff to the Clintons, they are alot better at it.

There is no significance to the date. If you were able to follow the flow of the argument, which you seem to have difficulty doing, it was denied that this technology had been implemented in a real world situation. According to the website of the organization that is responsible for creating the technology, it has been tested in a real world situation for a couple of years. You chose to not believe it. I asked you to prove your claim that the info was incorrect. You did not and could not. Case closed.

The technology is real, it exists, it works, and it is being tested, contrary to what was asserted here. Denial isn't going to change that.

[TankerKC]

So, if I ask you a question, I'm calling you a kook?

[Just another Joe]

Paranoia is profitable.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there's not someone after you.

[Free Vulcan]

If I asked you if you were still beating your wife, would you consider that a simple question?

I never said or implied there was any significance to the date. It simply was proof to refute the claim that this wasn't being tested in a real world situation. You made up the idea that I thought it was signficant out of whole cloth.

The question has been answered, now what exactly is your point?

[TankerKC]

I have no point. I'm just curious. You need to go back and review some the posts on this thread. You are waaaay to sensitive to any comment. Time to lighten up, Frances.

[_Jim]

It didn't originate with Caspian, it originated with MIT.

BUT the paranoia is pure Caspian, Alex Jones and a whole slew of other PINHEADS!

Keep posting this BS BTW, it's entertaining as hell to see who runs with it and as I'll NEVER get around to visiting those aforementioned paranoids on their OWN websites (don't ya know they TRACK yopu there as well!) I'll stay better informed entertained this way!

LOL!!!!