Reed Boardall: moving beyond RFID compliance

Bob Trebilcock

-- Modern Materials Handling, 5/19/2004

Third party logistics providers (3PL) are potentially in a unique position when it comes to RFID. Many 3PL facilities will be among the first to implement systems because their customers will demand it. They either service suppliers to Wal-Mart, Target, Albertsons, or one of the European early adopters, or they operate facilities for those retailers. But unlike suppliers to those retailiers, they will be able to pass on the cost of RFID implementations to their customers.

That provides an opportunity for 3PLs to adopt the technology for their own internal operations, according to Gary Tilburn, managing director, Reed Boardall Cold Storage, Ltd ., a British 3PL that serves major UK retailers like Tesco and Marks & Spencer that are implementing RFID programs.

Tilburn outlined the opportunities for the 3PL industry from RFID technology at the annual convention of the International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses and the World Food Logistics Organization in Miami in April.

Reed Boardall, for instance, is moving beyond compliance and implementing RFID processes for inbound receipts and outbound shipments at its facility in Yorkshire, England.

"The system will require an RFID label printer and a stand-alone PC to operate the RFID software, which will bolt on to our existing WMS (warehouse management system)," Tilburn said. "It will be connected by interfaces, which is the same methodology we use for our wireless terminal system and our voice picking system."

Since the majority of products come in to the facility on pallets from manufacturers, "these will already be labeled at the manufacturers’ expense," Tilburn explained. "We will only have to create RFID labels for case-picked pallets and restack pallets, and we can charge that back to the manufacturer."

Incoming loads are usually preceded by an advance ship notification, or ASN. When a load arrives at the Reed Boardall facility, it will be directed to a loading bay. There, an RFID reader at the dock entrance will automatically scan the RFID tag and confirm in the WMS that the pallet has arrived and is awaiting a putaway. Once a location has been determined in cold storage, the pallets will be taken away by reach trucks.

On the outbound side, pallets will be scanned as they pass under an RFID reader at the loading dock to verify the accuracy of the load being put on the trailer. "The scanner will update the system when pallets have been loaded correctly," Tilburn remarked. "Any wrong pallets will create an alarm warning."

In the future, Reed Boardall plans to use RFID technology to create a finished load plan. The plan, which will travel with drivers as they make their deliveries, will detail the location of every pallet in the trailer.

Tilburn says that the 3PL industry appears to be reluctant to embrace RFID because of the additional costs. That is a mistake.

"Implementing RFID for our customers is an opportunity we should be grasping with open arms," Tilburn concluded. "We must think of RFID as the next stage in the evolution of a 30-year-old system of bar code scanning."