CHEP’s new global RFID implementation set to bring new automotive business

The system, implemented by Infosys Technologies, will be used to provide real-time visibility of customer products and to track the shipping assets themselves. CHEP manages more than 280 million pallets and containers from a global network of service centres and identified a significant opportunity for RFID to provide product and asset visibility. Its new system will collect, monitor and analyse real-time RFID information on products and assets moving throughout its supply chain. It uses SAP’s Auto-ID Infrastructure, which serves as the foundation for the EPC and RFID data and business logic, as well as the SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure component, which translates and routes information into enterprise applications. SAP Event Management monitors and tracks events about assets and identity exceptions. The CHEP Global Track and Trace System is aimed at facilitating vendor managed inventory, and will provide for greater control of assets and improved inventory management – not to mention better asset utilisation and the ability to track damage and events in near real time so that action can be taken more quickly. CHEP believes its new system will enable it to gain new business for automotive and work in process inventory tracking, allowing the company to offer new value-added services. “In utilising advanced technologies to assist supply-chain-wide visibility, CHEP will bring further value to its customers,” says Puneet Sawhney, global program manager for RFID at CHEP. “CHEP is looking forward to realising the promised potential of RFID technology in real business-world environments across the globe,” he adds. The partners believe this major project is a significant step forward for global RFID adoption, not least because it combines SAP’s RFID platform and applications with Infosys’ RFID implementation model. “The partnership between SAP and Infosys signifies a step change in supporting enterprise-wide adoption of EPC (Electronic Product Code) and RFID-enabled solutions,” said UB Pravin, senior vice president and executive sponsor of the RFID programme at Infosys.