Simon says, "Stick RFID tags on your products," and America's biggest consumer products companies promptly fall in line? That's precisely what happened when Simon (Langford) issued Wal-Mart's now famous RFID mandate. So what will Wal- Mart want next?
John Johnson joined the DC Velocity team in March 2004. A veteran business journalist, John has over a dozen years of experience covering the supply chain field, including time as chief editor of Warehousing Management. In addition, he has covered the venture capital community and previously was a sports reporter covering professional and collegiate sports in the Boston area. John served as senior editor and chief editor of DC Velocity until April 2008.
Not since the Y2K scare five years ago has the turn of the calendar year been the object of such intense speculation. But this time around, no one was hunkered down in a basement with a stash of canned spaghetti and bottled water waiting for planes to fall from the sky. In fact, those awaiting 2005's arrival displayed more curiosity than trepidation. And rather than prophets of doom, the curious were mostly consultants, manufacturers, retailers and RFID vendors with a single question on their minds: What would happen when 52 Wal-Mart suppliers officially began shipping pallets and cases tagged with tiny RFID chips to the mega-retailer's DCs?
Now, 60 days out, the verdict on Wal-Mart's bold experiment seems to be so far, so good. At this point, Wal-Mart appears to be solidly on track with its RFID initiative, which called for its 100 largest suppliers to begin using so-called smart tags to identify incoming pallets and cases. True, the retailer didn't have all 100 of its top suppliers on board on Jan. 1, but that was never the goal to begin with. All along,Wal-Mart had asked its top 100 suppliers to meet not a Jan. 1 deadline, but a January deadline, giving them the luxury of a 31-day window to get their cargo in chip-shape. And sure enough, by the end of January, 108 suppliers were shipping products carrying RFID tags to Wal-Mart, while another 29 expected to be on board by March 1. (Those who counted a total of 137 companies are correct. Aside from the mega-retailer's top 100 suppliers, 37 companies volunteered to participate.)
"There were no surprises in January and that's precisely what Wal-Mart wanted," says Kara Romanow, a research analyst at AMR Research, who tracks many of the consumer product goods (CPG) companies subject to Wal- Mart's mandate. But compliance, of course, is only a small part of the story.What about the retailer's larger goals, like cost savings and a reduction in stock-outs? "It's still too early to tell whether Wal-Mart will meet its goals," Romanow answers. "We really don't know if [RFID] will impact [stock-outs] yet. But this is not a failure either, just by the fact that there are so many technology companies out there investing to make RFID a more mature technology. Wal-Mart has absolutely moved both the technology and the CPG industry forward."
Working out the kinks
As for the Bentonville Behemoth's own assessment, preliminary indications are that Wal-Mart's management is pleased with what it sees so far. "Things are going well and we are pleased with the progress," said Simon Langford, the retailer's director of global RFID strategy, via e-mail. Langford reported that as of Jan. 27, 92 suppliers had shipped RFID-tagged merchandise to Wal-Mart DCs in Texas. So far, Wal-Mart has received more than 7,000 tagged pallets and 210,000 tagged cases, and has recorded 1.5 million electronic product code (EPC) reads.
That's not to say there haven't been some hiccups. But Langford remains optimistic that the kinks can be worked out. "As the tagged cases start to work through the supply chain, we will start to see improvements," Langford said. "We will be measuring these improvements ongoing as we roll our changes [out] to all [RFID-equipped] sites."
Of course, that's not to suggest that all of those suppliers are tagging 100 percent of their Wal-Mart-bound products. Wal-Mart has reported that on average, participants are tagging 65 percent of their stock-keeping units (SKUs). But some observers believe that figure is a bit misleading. Some smaller suppliers may be tagging a majority (or even all) of their stock-keeping units, they say, but most companies are tagging between two and 10 products. And it's important to keep in mind that "10 SKUs" may represent one product in 10 different sizes or colors.
"What you have to realize," says Romanow, "is that most of those top suppliers are only tagging a handful of products. So the 65 percent number doesn't [adjust] for the smaller suppliers who only have three or four products and who are tagging all of them, and it doesn't account for only the handful of products from the big guys."
The road ahead
Now that the first round of RFID implementations is over, all indications are that Wal-Mart intends to stay the course. For one thing, Wal- Mart is pressing ahead with the installation of RFID-reading equipment in more distribution centers and stores. In preparation for the January rollout, Langford reports, Wal-Mart outfitted 104 retail stores with RFID equipment, deployed 14,000 pieces of hardware and ran 230 miles of cable. Now, it's barreling ahead with an expansion program. The retailer expects to have six distribution centers and 250 stores equipped with RFID readers by June, and 12 DCs and 600 stores by October.
In addition, the retailer is forging ahead with plans to bring more suppliers on board.Wal-Mart has put its next 200 biggest suppliers on notice that they'll be expected to begin tagging pallets and cases of selected products by January 2006. By the end of 2006, the retailer expects its entire supplier base (up to 20,000 suppliers) to be "engaged in RFID in some form or fashion." Langford has not revealed when Wal-Mart might start to roll out RFID internationally.
As for the 100 top suppliers, they're not off the hook yet. Wal-Mart has asked them to tag more products. But even without Wal-Mart's latest request, they'd still be facing a new set of challenges. In late December, the standards body EPCglobal ratified the Generation 2 standard for RFID tags. With the Gen 2 technology expected to become available in the second half of the year, many of the top 100 suppliers have resigned themselves to writing off their initial investments and starting over with the newer technology.
That Gen 2 rollout has thrown a wrench into the plans of others as well. Initially, industry analysts had predicted that compliance would be easier for the 200 suppliers in the second wave (which includes companies like E.&J. Gallo Winery), assuming that they could ride the coattails of the first wave of suppliers. But now, it looks like the advent of Gen 2 technology will make much of that early experience irrelevant.
Still, at least they're not starting from scratch. "For those next 200 suppliers, there are some small advantages in … that we have some standards out there now and that there is some knowledge about readers and antenna placement that they can leverage during their pilot," says Gene Alvarez, vice president at Stamford, Conn.-based Meta Group.
Has that assurance provided any consolation for the suppliers preparing for Round 2? "I've had two reactions from my clients," Alvarez says. "One wants to get on this as quickly as possible because if they can beat a competitor, maybe they gain preferred supplier status with Wal-Mart. The other client doesn't have a great deal of money to invest and wants to do the bare minimum, waiting things out until [it] can implement RFID properly. I think we'll see more people in that category."
Metro goes on the record
Wal-Mart isn't the only retailer riding the RFID wave. Metro Group, the world's third largest retailer, has also been busy deploying RFID. In fact, Metro has a bit more RFID experience under its belt at this point than its Arkansas-based counterpart does: Metro's RFID mandate carried a November 2004 deadline.
Unlike the notoriously tight-lipped Wal-Mart, which hasn't spoken much publicly about its experience, the Düsseldorf, Germany-based Metro has been publicly touting the cost savings and operations improvements it's realized from RFID. For one thing, the company says it has found that RFID-tagged shipments can be unloaded and checked in faster than their tagless counterparts, averaging just 15 to 20 minutes per truck. For another, it reports that RFID has helped it identify and eliminate weak spots in its handling processes.
According to the retailer, Metro has integrated RFID into existing operations so that RFID-tagged pallets and cases can be detected and recorded at the shipping pOréal. Tag IDs are then transmitted over a local area network (LAN) to a local server. The tag number, which functions as a serial shipping container code (SSCC), is then compared with electronic data interchange (EDI) data from the retailer's merchandise managing system on a central server. At that point, shipments can be either cleared or flagged if there is a discrepancy between the shipment and the EDI documentation or if the scanner experiences problems reading the RFID tag.
So what's next for Metro's RFID initiative? Gerd Wolfram, director of IT strategy, buying and development services for MGI Metro Group Information Technology, a Metro subsidiary that supplies the company with IT services, says that by the end of 2005, Metro expects to have 100 companies in its supply chain sending it RFID-tagged shipments. Next year, Metro expects to receive tagged shipments from its top 300 suppliers, which provide the retailer with merchandise that accounts for 60 to 80 percent of its total revenue.
Sometimes, all you need is the right partner to solve your logistics problems.
In 2021, global paint supplier Sherwin Williams faced driver and hazardous material (hazmat) capacity constraints: There simply weren’t enough hazmat drivers available in its fleet to maintain the company’s 90% fleet utilization rate expectations for key partner store deliveries while also meeting growing demand for service. Those challenges threatened to become even more acute in the future, as a competing paint supply company began to scale back its operations in the Pacific Northwest, leaving Sherwin Williams with an opportunity to fill the gap.
The paint supplier needed a logistics partner that could help it overcome the shortage of hazmat drivers while also helping to manage its West Coast trailer pools, out-of-region runs, and ad-hoc freight. It also needed a solution that would meet quarterly and annual fleet budgets.
SCALING UP
Enter ITS Logistics, a third-party logistics service provider (3PL) that offers supply chain solutions for drayage, network transportation, distribution, and fulfillment across North America. ITS proposed a combined owned-asset and asset-light approach that would provide Sherwin Williams with the equivalent of 21 additional drivers. The 3PL would leverage its carrier network to overcome the shortage of hazmat capacity while also certifying its own drivers via a three-month process. Further, ITS would help manage Sherwin Williams’ trailer pools and coordinate carriers, providing the paint company with a single point of contact for transportation.
The project would address cost concerns as well: “ITS Logistics aligned its solution with Sherwin Williams’ budgetary cadence and offered a quarterly business review to align on price structure, adding a level of transparency and trust to the relationship,” according to a case study the partners released earlier this year.
The companies soon sealed the deal and launched the program.
Not long after that, Sherwin Williams began to feel the effects of the anticipated challenges in the Pacific Northwest—but the company was prepared. When the competing paint supply company shuttered its operations, causing demand for Sherwin Williams’ products to spike, ITS injected a blend of owned trailers and carrier power to alleviate equipment challenges, cover all locations and regions, and help the paint supplier scale to meet volume.
CLOSING THE GAPS
The project has helped Sherwin Williams rapidly scale its capacity, meet fleet utilization requirements, manage trailer pools, coordinate carriers, and flex to meet spikes in regional demand.
And the results speak for themselves.
“ITS integrating themselves into our fleet was instrumental in helping increase our outbound volume by 18.4 million pounds [year over year] in the last seven months of 2023,” said Ted Taxon, regional transportation manager at Sherwin Williams, in the case study. “This equated to approximately 460 truckloads of extra freight, a large portion of which ITS [handled] on an ad-hoc basis with no operational constraints or quality issues.”
The partnership also helped Sherwin Williams maintain a 90% fleet utilization rate with big box retailers—an increase from less than 70% prior to the partnership’s launch.
Robots are revolutionizing factories, warehouses, and distribution centers (DCs) around the world, thanks largely to heavy investments in the technology between 2019 and 2021. And although investment has slowed since then, the long-term outlook calls for steady growth over the next four years. According to data from research and consulting firm Interact Analysis, revenues from shipments of industrial robots are forecast to grow nearly 4% per year, on average, between 2024 and 2028 (see Exhibit 1).
EXHIBIT 1: Market forecast for industrial robots - revenuesInteract Analysis
Material handling is among the top applications for all those robots, accounting for one-third of overall robot market revenues in 2023, according to the research. That puts warehouses and DCs on the cutting edge of robotic innovation, with projects that are helping companies reduce costs, optimize labor, and improve productivity throughout their facilities. Here’s a look at two recent projects that demonstrate the kinds of gains companies have achieved by investing in robotic equipment.
FASTER, MORE ACCURATE CYCLE COUNTS
When leaders at MSI Surfaces wanted to get a better handle on their vast inventory of flooring, countertops, tile, and hardscape materials, they turned to warehouse inventory drone provider Corvus Robotics. The seven-year-old company offers a warehouse drone system, called Corvus One, that can be installed and deployed quickly—in what MSI leaders describe as a “plug and play” process. Corvus Robotics’ drones are fully autonomous—they require no external infrastructure, such as beacons or stickers for positioning and navigation, and no human operators. Essentially, all you need is the drone and a landing pad, and you’re in business.
The drones use computer vision and generative AI (artificial intelligence) to “understand” their environment, flying autonomously in both very narrow aisles—passageways as narrow as 50 inches—and in very wide aisles. The Corvus One system relies on obstacle detection to operate safely in warehouses and uses barcode scanning technology to count inventory; the advanced system can read any barcode symbol in any orientation placed anywhere on the front of a carton or pallet.
The system was the perfect answer to the inventory challenges MSI was facing. Its annual physical inventory counts required two to four dedicated warehouse associates, who would manually scan inventory to determine the amount of stock on hand. The process was both time-consuming and error-prone, and often led to inaccuracies. And it created a chain reaction of issues and problems. Fulfillment speed is one example: Lost or misplaced inventory would delay customer deliveries, resulting in dissatisfaction, returns, and unmet expectations. Productivity was also an issue: Workers were often pulled from fulfillment tasks to locate material, slowing overall operations.
MSI Surfaces began using the Corvus One system in 2021, deploying a small number of drones for daily inventory counts at its 300,000-square-foot distribution center (DC) in Orange, California. It quickly scaled up, adding more drones in Orange and expanding the system to three other DCs: in Houston; Savannah, Georgia; and Edison, New Jersey. The company plans to add more drones to the existing sites and expand the system to some of its smaller DCs as well, according to Corvus Robotics spokesperson Andrew Burer.
Those expansion plans are based on solid results: MSI’s inventory accuracy was about 80% prior to the drone implementation, but it quickly jumped to the high 90s—ultimately reaching 99%—after the company initiated the daily drone counts, according to Burer.
“We actually had an incident early on where one of the forklift drivers ran into the landing pad, rendering it inoperable for about a week while the Corvus team fixed it,” Burer recalls. “When we restarted the system, we noticed MSI’s inventory accuracy had dropped down to the 80s. But after flights resumed, accuracy quickly improved back to near perfect.” He adds that such collisions are rare as Corvus mounts landing pads high off the floor to avoid impacts but that accidents can still happen.
Overall, the system has helped speed warehouse operations in two key ways: First, the accuracy improvement means that associates no longer waste time searching for missing material in the warehouse. And second, the associates who used to conduct the physical inventory counts have been reallocated to picking and replenishment—creating a more efficient, and optimized, workforce.
A SAFER, MORE EFFICIENT WAREHOUSE
Robot maker Boston Dynamics is well-known for its Stretch and Spot industrial robots, both of which are at work in warehouses and DCs around the world. Earlier this year, Stretch made its debut in Europe, teaming up with Spot at a fulfillment center run by German retail company Otto Group. The deployment marks the first time Stretch and Spot are being used together—in a partnership designed to improve Otto Group’s warehousing operations by increasing efficiency and making warehouse work safer and more attractive to workers.
The partnership is part of a two-year project in which Boston Dynamics will deploy dozens of its warehouse robots in Otto Group’s European DCs. The first location is a fulfillment site operated by Hermes, the company’s parcel delivery subsidiary, in Haldensleben, Germany—a facility that handles as many as 40,000 cartons of goods on peak days.
At the site, Stretch—which is a mobile case-handling robot—autonomously unloads ocean containers and trailers, using its advanced perception system to pick and place boxes onto a telescoping conveyor inside the container or trailer. Spot—a quadruped robot—helps with predictive maintenance by collecting thermal data and performing acoustic and visual detection tasks throughout the facility to reduce unplanned downtime and energy costs. One of Spot’s jobs is to detect air leaks in the facility’s warehouse automation systems; future duties may include conveyor vibration detection, according to leaders at Otto Group.
Both Stretch and Spot will help the Haldensleben facility run more efficiently, especially during fall peak season when volume increases and work intensifies. The addition of Stretch addresses safety and comfort issues as well: Trailer unloading—a process that entails repeatedly lifting and moving heavy boxes inside a trailer, which can be dark, dirty, cold, and/or hot, depending on the weather—tends to be unappealing to workers. Along with reducing the amount of labor required, automating these tasks will have the added benefit for European facilities of helping them comply with EU (European Union) regulations limiting the amount of time workers can spend in those conditions.
Essentially, the robots are making life easier on the warehouse floor and for the company at large.
“Stretch is going to have a ton of benefits for customers here in the EU,” Andrew Brueckner, of Boston Dynamics, said in a recent case study on the project.
The trucking industry faces a range of challenges these days, particularly when it comes to load planning—a resource-intensive task that often results in suboptimal decisions, unnecessary empty miles, late deliveries, and inefficient asset utilization. What’s more, delays in decision-making due to a lack of real-time insights can hinder operational efficiency, making cost management a constant struggle.
Truckload carrier Paper Transport Inc. (PTI) experienced this firsthand when the company sought to expand its over the-road (OTR), intermodal, and brokerage offerings to include dedicated fleet services for high-volume shippers—adding a layer of complexity to the business. The additional personnel required for such a move would be extremely costly, leading PTI to investigate technology solutions that could help close the gap.
Enter Freight Science and its intelligent decision-recommendation and automation platform.
PTI implemented Freight Science’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven load planning optimization solution earlier this year, giving the carrier a high-tech advantage as it launched the new service.
“As PTI tried to diversify … we found that we needed a technological solution that would allow us to process [information] faster,” explains Jared Stedl, chief commercial officer for PTI, emphasizing the high volume of outbound shipments and unique freight characteristics of its targeted dedicated-fleet customers.
The Freight Science platform allowed PTI to apply its signature high-quality service to those needs, all while handling the daily challenges of managing drivers and navigating route disruptions.
STREAMLINING PROCESSES
Dedicated fleets face challenges that evolve from day to day and minute to minute, including truck breakdowns, drivers calling in sick, and rescheduled appointment times. PTI needed a tool that allowed for a real-time view of the fleet, ultimately enabling its team to adjust truck and driver allocation to meet those challenges.
The Freight Science solution filled the bill. The platform uses advanced analytics and algorithms to give carriers better visibility into operations while automating the decision-making process. By combining streaming data, a carrier’s transportation management system (TMS), machine learning, and decision science, the solution allows carriers to deploy their fleets more efficiently while accurately forecasting future needs, according to Freight Science.
In PTI’s case, Freight Science’s software integrates with the carrier’s TMS, real-time electronic logging device (ELD) data, and other external data, feeding an AI model that generates an optimized load plan for the planner.
“We’re an integrated data analytics company for trucking companies,” explains Matt Foster, Freight Science’s president and CEO. “We’re talking about AI.”
The benefits of the real-time data are difficult to overstate.
“We’ve been able to execute in the toughest of situations because we’ve got real, live data on how long each event is actually going to take and a system to aid and even automate the decision-making process,” says Chad Borley, PTI’s operations manager. “From what traffic patterns we are battling in the morning and evening with rush hour and things like that, to the impact of additional miles to a route, or even location-specific dwell times, it’s been a huge differentiator for us.”
REALIZING RESULTS
A case in point: the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. PTI was scheduled to go live with a new dedicated account in the area just days after the collapse, which would mean rerouting and the potential for longer transit times. Instead of recalculating based on assumptions or latent data, PTI was able to reroute freight based on real-time information and analytics to give the customer timely updates.
“With the bridge going out, that changed our ability to make as many turns a day as the customer would expect,” Stedl explains. “But one of the things Freight Science could do [was to] quickly [assess] how much of an impact that traffic would have [and] what the turns [would] be based on what’s happening on the ground.
“So we were able to go back to the customer and readjust expectations in a real way that made sense, using data. Now expectations can be reset¾we’re not asking for forgiveness when there’s no reason for it.”
The system’s advanced algorithms make load planning more cost-effective and scalable as well. The platform allows PTI to monitor trucks, trailers, and driver hours in real time, recommending additional loads with remaining driver hours that would otherwise be wasted.
And they’re doing it all with much less. Stedl says tasks that used to require five people and hours of work can now be accomplished by one person in mere minutes, improving productivity and profitability while reducing labor and operational costs.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Aptean said the move will add new capabilities to its warehouse management and supply chain management offerings for manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and 3PLs. Aptean currently provides enterprise resource planning (ERP), transportation management systems (TMS), and product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms.
Founded in 1980 and headquartered in Durham, U.K., Indigo Software provides software designed for mid-market organizations, giving users real-time visibility and management from the initial receipt of stock all the way through to final dispatch of the finished product. That enables organizations to optimize an array of warehouse operations including receiving, storage, picking, packing, and shipping, the firm says.
Specific sectors served by Indigo Software include the food and beverage, fashion and apparel, fast moving consumer goods, automotive, manufacturing, 3PL, chemicals, and wholesale / distribution verticals.
Schneider says its FreightPower platform now offers owner-operators significantly more access to Schneider’s range of freight options. That can help drivers to generate revenue and strengthen their business through: increased access to freight, high drop and hook rates of over 95% of loads, and a trip planning feature that calculates road miles.
“Collaborating with owner-operators is an important component in the success of our business and the reliable service we can provide customers, which is why the network has grown tremendously in the last 25 years,” Schneider Senior Vice President and General Manager of Truckload and Mexico John Bozec said in a release. "We want to invest in tools that support owner-operators in running and growing their businesses. With Schneider FreightPower, they gain access to better load management, increasing their productivity and revenue potential.”