Kimberly-Clark builds RFID test warehouse

By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 3/1/2006

Joining a host of companies allocating considerable capital for RFID pilots and development, Kimberly-Clark has established a warehouse solely designed for RFID testing.

The $15 billion Dallas-based consumer goods supplier built its 5,000 square-foot warehouse test facility to address the company's questions about the overall viability of the technology. Tag read rates, throughput volumes, and similar RFID issues will be evaluated at this new facility.

Kimberly-Clark executives say they firmly believe that RFID will give the retail industry the ability to achieve just-in-time efficiencies similar to those of Toyota Motor Corp. and Dell, Inc.

"It's going to get to the point where we can send an alert to Wal-Mart and ask them why a store shelf is empty when we know there's product in the warehouse," said Terry Assink, CIO of Kimberly-Clark.

The company admits that such a just-in-time supply chain is "probably still a decade away." Right now, Kimberly-Clark is still figuring out how to incorporate RFID tags into its own operations, let alone those of its suppliers, business partners and customers.

Some skeptics say RFID technology will never be so inexpensive that putting a tag on something like a box of Kleenex, a major brand for Kimberly-Clark, will be feasible.

As proof of the company's commitment to developing the technology, its management has deemed RFID development worthy of a large, multi-year budget.

"RFID should give us visibility into our whole supply chain," Assink said. "From our supplier's supplier all the way to the shelf-not the pantry shelf, but the store shelf."