Supply chain solutions need RFID technology

More than half of business leaders (52%) believe that poor co-ordination between nodes is their biggest supply chain problem, and 73% now plan to increase spending on appropriate supply chain IT and services, albeit mostly modestly, to plug the gap. Those are among key findings of a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit last month for IT services and technology company Unisys. It spoke to 123 senior execs in consumer goods, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing. The survey also reveals that 43% are concerned about mechanical and IT failures impacting their supply chains, and that integration and partner collaboration, potentially across multi-national networks of suppliers, logistics companies and customers, are now seen as the most pressing investments by 60% of firms. However, Unisys finds businesses divided on how to do that, there being little consensus on the value of newer technologies like RFID, for example: 43% remain unaware, while 45% say they’re actively evaluating or planning to implement it in the next two years. Emily Brady, who heads up Unisys’ UK supply chain practice, points out that as manufacturers spread supply chains globally, they expose themselves to greater risks, and that without connected IT and track and trace technology, they are also unlikely to be able to respond to opportunities. “They’ve invested in optimising within their four walls, but not into their supply chains,” she says. “We believe that application of passive, and even more active RFID will drive significant benefits.” Unisys should know: the company doesn’t shout about it, but it’s been running substantial RFID projects for more than a decade, the biggest of which is with the US Department of Defense, for which it manages 25,000 movements every day. Now that RFID is one of the hottest topics, the firm is now shouting – and it’s launched Unisys Global Visible Commerce Solutions, services aimed at giving companies near-real time views into their supply chains. It’s about cutting through the hype and misinformation, assessing requirements and appropriate technologies, running proof of concept, and ultimately implementing systems and managing them. Brady insists new technologies in tandem with modern IT can make huge differences, particularly where the value of assets and resources is high, or where knowledge of their status and/or location is key. She also observes that it’s not only about improving delivery performance or reducing shrinkage. She lists asset management, health and safety compliance, maintenance regimes and goods loading bay management as among aspects ripe for change. With the survey also finding only 15% of business leaders believing their knowledge of material movements is accurate, a requirement for something is clear. And Cullum Moy, practice director at Unisys’ centre of excellence, adds that the something might well be active, not necessarily passive, RFID. He blows away the myth that active RFID is too expensive – makeing the point that while passive RFID tags are a fraction of the price of active tags, active readers are far cheaper. “The cost of active RFID is very comparable with passive if the volumes are low.” And indeed Unisys sees the whole RFID piece as being a part of the supply chain matrix of technologies, with barcodes and optical readers at one end and RFID and GPRS at the other. “We have a matrix of solutions,” he says.