Wal-Mart's Faltering RFID Initiative 130
itphobe writes "Baseline magazine has up an in-depth look at Wal-Mart's years-old RFID initiative. Things apparently haven't gone so well for the retail giant. 'The lack of any obvious concrete gains has raised questions as to whether Wal-Mart should delay or freeze its RFID plans. For now, however, Wal-Mart says it will stay the course ... By January 2006 the company hoped to have as many as 12 of its roughly 130 distribution centers fully outfitted with RFID. That effort stalled at just five distribution centers. Instead, the company is now focusing on implementing RFID in stores fed by those five distribution centers so it can gain a bigger window into its supply chain.' Overall the article focuses on the original intentions of the RFID project vs. their implementation. It also discusses several of the technical elements required to adapt RFID for the US juggernaut."
tight ships have less to gain (Score:4, Insightful)
But we're talking wal-mart.
They already were running a really tight ship, keeping every possible cost down, tracking everything with keyboarding and bar codes already, plus any wasted time tracking pallets was mostly blue-vest people at $8 an hour.
At some point, the waste and inefficiency just isn't there anymore and spending billions of dollars to save millions is pure management stupidity.
there's nothing wrong with the ship, it's the captain that's messed up.
Out in 30 seconds? I don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not quite sure how RFID is supposed to make the checkout person bag my items any faster. Or is that not the slowest part of the whole process? It's not like we're losing a whole lot of time waiting for barcodes to be scanned, unless you're buying pears and they have to key it in manually.
On an unrelated rant, I'm pretty sure the idea with utopia is that you can't get there. And I can think of a lot better utopia than a Wal-Mart checkout line.
Re:Intimate Walmart/RFID info (Score:5, Insightful)
And lets not even talk, much anyhow, about a pallet full of cans of soup. RFID visibility is not good amongst cans. If its supposed to always be on a visible side, how do you target the one in the middle? What about mis-stacking with RFIDS hidden? Besides cans provide an example of economics. I understand that Wal Mart pays something on the order of six cents per soup can. If RFID is ten cents. Do you want to "pay" more than a can of soup, 1/24 of your cost for visibility. Perhaps not when profits are measured to much smaller decimal points.
Good luck,
J
Re:I LOVE WAL-MART SOO MUUUCH!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:5 cent tags (Score:4, Insightful)
The reasonable cost-per-tag really depends on what you're tagging. If you're tagging flat panel TVs 20c/tag is perfectly reasonable. If you're doing item-level tagging on tupperware, even 5c/tag is too much. Unfortunately ultra-cheap items where the manufacturer's margins are super tight are the norm in Wal*Mart stores, so for most of them, 10-20c is way too much.
Re:Out in 30 seconds? I don't think so... (Score:4, Insightful)
2. That's why you get a receipt on your way out.
- Alaska Jack
Re:Out in 30 seconds? I don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good strategery, Wal-Mart (Score:1, Insightful)
The reason WMart wanted RFID was so that they could run as much of the company as possible on a consignment basis - with title for the product not being transfered until a consumer buys it - that way WMART never has to park any money in stocked products. They do a limited form of this method now, but RFID was going to virtually eliminate the time they would "own" the product to be resold.
Crazy, greedy way-too-clever rat bastards. They will get RFID rolled out sooner or later - not because it's good for the vendor or consumer, but because it's good for them.