German casual apparel company Marc O'Polo has adopted a radio frequency identification solution to track its products across the entire supply chain, from its distribution center to 86 of its stores throughout Europe. The company finished installing the system at all 87 sites by September 2014, and is now expanding the deployment to include the tagging of products by manufacturers, thereby enabling the retailer to track its merchandise from the point at which they are made.
The University of Southern California housing office knew its housing facilities, on and off campus, had upwards of 60,000 pieces of furniture and appliances. But until the student housing office deployed a radio frequency identification system, tracking which items were at what locations, as well as which were broken, missing or due for replacement, required exhaustive manual inventories. Those inventory counts, typically conducted during summers, required the hiring of temporary workers and many hours of labor to catalog what was where.