We again conducted our quarterly survey of automated data capture resellers, which included 89 participants in June. We saw a modest improvement in trend in June from our March survey, primarily from increased sales of parts and supplies, and from some smaller new projects moving forward. Reseller optimism improved as pipelines continue to build, particularly [...]

The June 2009 edition of the RFID Monthly newsletter is now available. In this edition of the newsletter, we cover several new industry developments, including the following:
American Apparel Case Study Reveals Strong ROI. We evaluated American Apparel’s item level RFID pilot and believe the per-store payback to be about 4.5 months given increased sales from fewer [...]

Coca-Cola has introduced a new fountain dispenser, called Freestyle, which allows significantly more consumer choice at self-service stations, with 100 drink combinations versus between 6-12 choices with existing equipment. Freestyle will primarily serve fast food restaurants (consider McDonald’s and Burger King, which use Coke products), movie theatres and convenience stores. Combinations could include caffeine-free diet-coke [...]

While the overall apparel market remains weak, with many stores continuing to see contraction, there is some evidence of improvement in the last several months. Several of the specialty retailers are seeing stability to gradual improvement in the last several months. Of the eight specialty apparel retailers that report results on Business Wire’s monthly retail [...]

Serge Blanco, a European apparel retailer with 360 stores, is levering RFID to improve its supply chain operating efficiency. The company originally considered increasing its Toulouse distribution center size and adding additional docks, but instead looked at improving efficiency for the 1.5M items that flow through its supply chain each year, and elected to use [...]

The downturn is apparently causing retail theft to increase and retailers are considering allocating more resources towards the problem. Recall, we reported in the February edition of RFID Monthly that retail shrink is a $130B problem worldwide, and that RFID can play a role in helping retailers identify problems associated with in store theft and [...]

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the “stimulus package,” $1.5B has been appropriated for Grants for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER Grants. Detail can be found in the Federal Register [Docket No. OST-2009-0115]. We expect some of the associated transportation projects may use RFID. These [...]

AIM Global announced its RFID Experts Group (REG) will work with Georgia Tech and MET Labs to develop RFID based test protocols in healthcare. Recall, back in December, the REG indicted it would will develop a set of test protocols for RF emitters to determine safe thresholds in a healthcare environment. This was largely in [...]

University Hospital, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University, has implemented an RTLS solution for multiple applications. The 366 bed facility is tracking traditional equipment such as IV infusion pumps, wheel chairs and beds in an effort to improve asset utilization. In addition, the hospital implemented RTLS for key assets [...]

Dairy Queen is leveraging a multi-vendor, RFID based solution to conduct targeted marketing campaigns and track customer loyalty using customer mobile phones. Dairy Queen provides HF RFID tags to customers who sign up for the mobile loyalty program. These tags are placed on the customers’ mobile phone, which provides an easy and reliable form of [...]