Metro Group is expanding its RFID "Tag It Easy!" program, which is being deployed in partnership with Checkpoint Systems. This third phase of the program will involve more than 75 Chinese and Indian consumer-goods suppliers, in addition to the 100 manufacturers already in the program from Hong Kong, China and Vietnam. "Tag It Easy!" participants apply RFID labels on shipments bound for Metro Group's facilities in Germany.
The "Tag It Easy!" program is part of the Metro's initiative to improve logistics processes with its Asian suppliers, using RFID to track merchandise throughout the supply chain. As an exclusive third-party solutions provider, Checkpoint continues to supply pre-printed RFID labels and services to suppliers in the region.
"Since the program's inception, the processing of incoming goods at warehouses and stores has been accelerated considerably and read rates using UHF EPC Gen 2 tags have been highly satisfactory," says Gerd Wolfram, CIO of Metro Group, which operates around 2,100 stores in 32 countries. "Time-consuming manual counts are no longer necessary, and that means goods get to the individual stores much faster and easier," he notes.
