Earlier this month, the University of Washington launched what's known as the RFID Ecosystem Project, one of the largest people- and item-tracking experiments on record.
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.
It's near the end of the day when you discover that you left a folder containing payroll information for your DC's temp workers in one of the many meetings you attended. You may have no choice but to retrace your steps and look for it, but if you worked at the University of Washington's Center for Computer Science and Engineering, you'd have another alternative: you could track down your missing stuff immediately with RFID technology.
Earlier this month, UW launched what's known as the RFID Ecosystem Project. As part of the project, which is one of the largest people- and item-tracking experiments on record, 50 volunteers from among the 400 or so people who use the building regularly began wearing RFID tags on their clothing and other belongings. About 200 antennas have been installed in the facility to read the tags.
The pilot program represents the next step in social networking— wirelessly monitoring people and things in a closed environment. RFID vendor ThingMagic has been experimenting with a similar system, though on a much smaller scale, at its Cambridge, Mass., headquarters.
At UW, RFID tags record the location of the volunteers every five seconds throughout much of the six-story building. The information is saved to a database and published to Web pages. Participants can control who may see their data, delete any data, or opt out of the study without penalty.
The RFID Ecosystem Project aims to provide a glimpse into a world that many technology experts believe is just over the horizon, according to project leader Magda Balazinska, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering.
"Our goal is to ask what benefits can we get out of this technology and how can we protect people's privacy at the same time," said Balazinska in a press release. "We want to get a handle on the issues that would crop up if these systems become a reality."
Researchers will use the system to monitor both positive and negative trends—such as keeping track of everything from where you lost your laptop charger to where your friends are meeting for coffee— and the potential loss of privacy by sharing such information. Just imagine how the technology could be used to track picking performance within a distribution center.
The pilot study will incorporate two new studentdeveloped features that aim to exploit the system's potential benefits. One invention is a tool that records a person's movements in Google Calendar. Study participants can set the system to instantaneously publish activities, such as arrival at work, meetings, or lunch breaks, on their Web calendars. Another tool, dubbed "friend finder," sends instant alerts to participants' e-mail addresses or cell phones telling them when friends are in certain places.
"It's a perfect memory system that records all your personal interactions throughout the day," said Evan Welbourne, a UW doctoral student in computer science and engineering and one of those wearing RFID tags. "You can go back a day later, a month later, and see, 'What did I do that day?' or, 'Who have I spent my time with lately?'"
Gartner says RFID sales will top $1B this year
In another sign that RFID technology is closer to going mainstream, research firm Gartner predicts that the industry will grow at a 30-percent clip this year. The Stamford, Conn.-based company forecasts that total worldwide revenue will hit $1.2 billion in 2008—a significant increase over last year's $917 million. Gartner's forecast calls for worldwide RFID revenue to reach $3.5 billion by 2012. (Gartner does not include RFID cards and transport applications like toll cards in its forecast.)
"The market for RFID technologies has begun to transition from being compliance-oriented to being revenue-generating and innovative," said Chad Eschinger, research director at Gartner, in a press release. "Much of the initial adoption of RFID was driven by mandates from the U.S. Department of Defense and Wal-Mart, where compliance with a retailer directive rather than business competitiveness was often the underlying driver," he added. "Early adopters faced tight profit margins and pressed technology providers for lower hardware costs. Fortunately for the market, this trend has waned and innovation rather than cost is becoming a key driver for adoption."
Gartner maintains that the forced adoption of RFID initially led to faster uptake than would otherwise have occurred. This was followed by a delay in sales and in further adoption. Since then, Eschinger says, new applications and standards have helped to rejuvenate demand as companies have realized that the value of RFID lies in the business process innovation, not the technology.
Logistics real estate developer Prologis today named a new chief executive, saying the company’s current president, Dan Letter, will succeed CEO and co-founder Hamid Moghadam when he steps down in about a year.
After retiring on January 1, 2026, Moghadam will continue as San Francisco-based Prologis’ executive chairman, providing strategic guidance. According to the company, Moghadam co-founded Prologis’ predecessor, AMB Property Corporation, in 1983. Under his leadership, the company grew from a startup to a global leader, with a successful IPO in 1997 and its merger with ProLogis in 2011.
Letter has been with Prologis since 2004, and before being president served as global head of capital deployment, where he had responsibility for the company’s Investment Committee, deployment pipeline management, and multi-market portfolio acquisitions and dispositions.
Irving F. “Bud” Lyons, lead independent director for Prologis’ Board of Directors, said: “We are deeply grateful for Hamid’s transformative leadership. Hamid’s 40-plus-year tenure—starting as an entrepreneurial co-founder and evolving into the CEO of a major public company—is a rare achievement in today’s corporate world. We are confident that Dan is the right leader to guide Prologis in its next chapter, and this transition underscores the strength and continuity of our leadership team.”
The New York-based industrial artificial intelligence (AI) provider Augury has raised $75 million for its process optimization tools for manufacturers, in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion, the firm said today.
According to Augury, its goal is deliver a new generation of AI solutions that provide the accuracy and reliability manufacturers need to make AI a trusted partner in every phase of the manufacturing process.
The “series F” venture capital round was led by Lightrock, with participation from several of Augury’s existing investors; Insight Partners, Eclipse, and Qumra Capital as well as Schneider Electric Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. In addition to securing the new funding, Augury also said it has added Elan Greenberg as Chief Operating Officer.
“Augury is at the forefront of digitalizing equipment maintenance with AI-driven solutions that enhance cost efficiency, sustainability performance, and energy savings,” Ashish (Ash) Puri, Partner at Lightrock, said in a release. “Their predictive maintenance technology, boasting 99.9% failure detection accuracy and a 5-20x ROI when deployed at scale, significantly reduces downtime and energy consumption for its blue-chip clients globally, offering a compelling value proposition.”
The money supports the firm’s approach of "Hybrid Autonomous Mobile Robotics (Hybrid AMRs)," which integrate the intelligence of "Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)" with the precision and structure of "Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs)."
According to Anscer, it supports the acceleration to Industry 4.0 by ensuring that its autonomous solutions seamlessly integrate with customers’ existing infrastructures to help transform material handling and warehouse automation.
Leading the new U.S. office will be Mark Messina, who was named this week as Anscer’s Managing Director & CEO, Americas. He has been tasked with leading the firm’s expansion by bringing its automation solutions to industries such as manufacturing, logistics, retail, food & beverage, and third-party logistics (3PL).
Supply chains continue to deal with a growing volume of returns following the holiday peak season, and 2024 was no exception. Recent survey data from product information management technology company Akeneo showed that 65% of shoppers made holiday returns this year, with most reporting that their experience played a large role in their reason for doing so.
The survey—which included information from more than 1,000 U.S. consumers gathered in January—provides insight into the main reasons consumers return products, generational differences in return and online shopping behaviors, and the steadily growing influence that sustainability has on consumers.
Among the results, 62% of consumers said that having more accurate product information upfront would reduce their likelihood of making a return, and 59% said they had made a return specifically because the online product description was misleading or inaccurate.
And when it comes to making those returns, 65% of respondents said they would prefer to return in-store, if possible, followed by 22% who said they prefer to ship products back.
“This indicates that consumers are gravitating toward the most sustainable option by reducing additional shipping,” the survey authors said in a statement announcing the findings, adding that 68% of respondents said they are aware of the environmental impact of returns, and 39% said the environmental impact factors into their decision to make a return or exchange.
The authors also said that investing in the product experience and providing reliable product data can help brands reduce returns, increase loyalty, and provide the best customer experience possible alongside profitability.
When asked what products they return the most, 60% of respondents said clothing items. Sizing issues were the number one reason for those returns (58%) followed by conflicting or lack of customer reviews (35%). In addition, 34% cited misleading product images and 29% pointed to inaccurate product information online as reasons for returning items.
More than 60% of respondents said that having more reliable information would reduce the likelihood of making a return.
“Whether customers are shopping directly from a brand website or on the hundreds of e-commerce marketplaces available today [such as Amazon, Walmart, etc.] the product experience must remain consistent, complete and accurate to instill brand trust and loyalty,” the authors said.
When you get the chance to automate your distribution center, take it.
That's exactly what leaders at interior design house
Thibaut Design did when they relocated operations from two New Jersey distribution centers (DCs) into a single facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2019. Moving to an "empty shell of a building," as Thibaut's Michael Fechter describes it, was the perfect time to switch from a manual picking system to an automated one—in this case, one that would be driven by voice-directed technology.
"We were 100% paper-based picking in New Jersey," Fechter, the company's vice president of distribution and technology, explained in a
case study published by Voxware last year. "We knew there was a need for automation, and when we moved to Charlotte, we wanted to implement that technology."
Fechter cites Voxware's promise of simple and easy integration, configuration, use, and training as some of the key reasons Thibaut's leaders chose the system. Since implementing the voice technology, the company has streamlined its fulfillment process and can onboard and cross-train warehouse employees in a fraction of the time it used to take back in New Jersey.
And the results speak for themselves.
"We've seen incredible gains [from a] productivity standpoint," Fechter reports. "A 50% increase from pre-implementation to today."
THE NEED FOR SPEED
Thibaut was founded in 1886 and is the oldest operating wallpaper company in the United States, according to Fechter. The company works with a global network of designers, shipping samples of wallpaper and fabrics around the world.
For the design house's warehouse associates, picking, packing, and shipping thousands of samples every day was a cumbersome, labor-intensive process—and one that was prone to inaccuracy. With its paper-based picking system, mispicks were common—Fechter cites a 2% to 5% mispick rate—which necessitated stationing an extra associate at each pack station to check that orders were accurate before they left the facility.
All that has changed since implementing Voxware's Voice Management Suite (VMS) at the Charlotte DC. The system automates the workflow and guides associates through the picking process via a headset, using voice commands. The hands-free, eyes-free solution allows workers to focus on locating and selecting the right item, with no paper-based lists to check or written instructions to follow.
Thibaut also uses the tech provider's analytics tool, VoxPilot, to monitor work progress, check orders, and keep track of incoming work—managers can see what orders are open, what's in process, and what's completed for the day, for example. And it uses VoxTempo, the system's natural language voice recognition (NLVR) solution, to streamline training. The intuitive app whittles training time down to minutes and gets associates up and working fast—and Thibaut hitting minimum productivity targets within hours, according to Fechter.
EXPECTED RESULTS REALIZED
Key benefits of the project include a reduction in mispicks—which have dropped to zero—and the elimination of those extra quality-control measures Thibaut needed in the New Jersey DCs.
"We've gotten to the point where we don't even measure mispicks today—because there are none," Fechter said in the case study. "Having an extra person at a pack station to [check] every order before we pack [it]—that's been eliminated. Not only is the pick right the first time, but [the order] also gets packed and shipped faster than ever before."
The system has increased inventory accuracy as well. According to Fechter, it's now "well over 99.9%."