Stores Magazine - October 2007 - (Page 62) NUTS AND BOLTS / RFID Riding the Next Wave Metro Group pushing forward with RFID initiatives BY LEN LEWIS G erd Wolfram, managing director of information technology for Germany’s Metro Group, hesitates for a moment when asked about the timetable for completing the system-wide rollout of RFID technology. “Ask me that again at the end of the interview,” he muses. The reticence has nothing to do with his confidence in the technology and its benefits or in Metro’s ability to launch it throughout its extensive global supply chain. Rather, it is the knowledge that RFID implementation is an evolutionary process — a never-ending quest for improvement, efficiency and new applications that will benefit the company and its consumers for years to come. The Metro Group, which operates 62 STORES / OCTOBER 2007 more than 2,000 supermarkets, hypermarkets, cash-and-carry and department stores in 30 countries has, through its Future Store project, been pioneering RFID technology since 2004. Its aggressive implementation strategy will continue into 2008, including a test of itemlevel tagging at its Kaufhof department stores that is expected to boost customer service while reducing shrink. Playing a large role in this expansion will be Reva Systems’ Tag Acquisition Processor, which will enable Metro to deploy RFID technology, process data faster and support current and future RFID initiatives. “Reva offers a high-performance RFID infrastructure product that could satisfy our rollout requirements,” Wolfram says. “By using this technology, we are moving RFID out of the innovation labs and into working retail stores.” Metro is in the process of rolling out the technology for receiving gates in 60 cash-and-carry stores, 100 Real hypermarkets and 10 distribution centers. The system is scheduled to go live by the end of this month; the balance of Real hypermarkets in Germany — another 200 stores — will start receiving RFID shipments next year. Metro’s company-wide RFID initiative began in 2004, when the chain opened its RFID Innovation Center in Neuss, Germany. There, about 40 suppliers began testing the technology in realistic conditions rather than simply in laboratories. Future Store Initiative This was supplemented by the chain’s Future Store Initiative in Rheinberg, Germany — a showplace for in-store technological innovations like automatWWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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