Retailers are generally looking to deploy lighter and more user friendly readers that are easier for store associates to use for conducting cycle counting and inventory. This short video demonstrates how an RFID reader combined with an Android phone can perform inventory.

The video shows the Nordic ID Stix RFID reader affixed to a Samsung Galaxy S4 phone.

RFID in retail continues to gain steam. Retailers large and small are deploying the technology, and those with established programs in place are expanding the scope of the products covered.

Lifetime Brands began shipping eight SKUs equipped with RFID tags to Macy's on May 1 and will expand the program to 250 products in August.

Lifetime Brands will up the ante in August when it begins to ship an additional 250-300 SKUs to Macy’s, including kitchen tools, cutlery and “gadget” items like can openers. Moving from apparel tagging to items with large amounts of metal represents a major initiative for Macy’s and a real sign of the technology’s maturation, since tagging items like metal pots and pans traditionally interfered with RFID read rates.

American Apparel, which had deployed to just over 100 stores at the end of 2012, more than doubled that number over the past several months, deploying RFID at more than 100 stores in 18 countries. Stacey Shulman, vice president of technology at American Apparel, says that the company had a very strong holiday selling period due to the inventory visibility that RFID allows.

Handheld RFID readers will soon be a thing of the past at American Apparel stores.

“We really believed that RFID would help us during the holidays and it did,” she said. “If you check our public filing you’ll see that it definitely helped us over the holidays because the fourth quarter came in very strong across all of our channels.”

American Apparel is in the process of setting up its stores for self checkout, enabling customers to checkout from anywhere inside a store if they have an account on their mobile device. Shulman expects the self checkout system to begin rolling out at stores sometime next month.

American Apparel is also piloting a fixed infrastructure reader antenna solution that Schulman says will eliminate the need for handheld readers and allow store associates to spend less time on back room tasks and more time with customers on the sales floor. The solution is being piloted at two stores, and Shulman says that its ROI is already proven.

The system will allow American Apparel to manage its store floors by zones, and will send alerts to store associates when items need to be replenished or when an item is out of place on the sales floor. It will also generate potential theft alerts.

“The way that we are doing this is through a fixed infrastructure antenna system,” says Shulman. “We have found that we can read 35,000 units in a dense environment with 98 percent accuracy in under an hour, which is better than our handhelds.

“Obviously it saves labor. The antenna system does the inventory every night for us and when employees arrive in the morning they look at a dashboard and work in their zone. It removes the employee from focusing on the back stock and allows them to focus on making sure the sales floor is presentable and well merchandised.”

Eventually, the system can be used to track item movement every 30 seconds, so goods like jeans or blouses can be tracked moving through certain zones of the store. “We are not using that function yet, but those are the capabilities that you have with the system,” says Shulman.

“We don’t need handhelds anymore,” she says. “Our goal is to get into a hands-free environment with our staff. We want RFID technology to be invisible to them and to have our salespeople selling and focused on our customers. Between customers, they can be moving product back to where it needs to go. We don’t want them walking around with a bulky scanners on the sales floor.”

Even a relatively low industry shrink rate of 0.52 percent wasn’t good enough for Erin Limas, the chief financial officer at Borsheims, a single-store jeweler located in Omaha, Neb. With a high-priced inventory that includes a diamond that retails for $14 million, Limas turned to RFID to monitor the high-priced items throughout the 62,500 square-foot store and as a safeguard against employee theft.

Borsheims, a jewelry store in Omaha, is tagging high-priced diamond rings and watches.

The retailer first considered an RFID solution 10 years ago, but low read rates and a high price tag prevented a deployment. Now, Borsheims has tagged about 1,500 units, including luxury watches and about 1,000 diamond rings. By early June, Limas says her RFID-tagged inventory will increase to 5,000 units. The store carries 88,000 SKUs, but Limas only intends to tag a portion of its inventory.

“Our challenge was inventory shrink,” says Limas. “When you think about it, 0.52 percent is still a lot of $100 million in inventory. I was really worried about the expensive inventory.”

Borsheims, a one-store retailer owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, deployed a jewelry tracking solution called Zero Shrink provided by Boston-based TJS.

Since Borsheims began tagging watches and diamond rings, the store has experienced zero shrink on tagged items.

The store’s first objective was to tag expensive watches, which represent about $750,000 worth of inventory and are high theft items because of their high resale value. The store used to count the watches manually every day, but that process has been reduced to a 15 minute operation due to RFID. Watches are tagged with an HF cotton thread tag that costs 89 cents. The tags can be reused two or three times.

The tags for the diamond rings cost 59 cents apiece. They are also reusable, although Limas opts to throw them away after a single use.

Aside from inventory management and theft deterrent, RFID helps Limas’ staff to track and trace jewelry as it moves around the store, be it to the back room to be cleaned or if it is inadvertently relocated within the store. In addition, Limas says that RFID can help Borsheims to maintain its historically low prices by improving efficiencies and reducing employee theft.

“We had some employee theft in the past but we definitely don’t have the shrink levels that we used to,” says Limas. “Swiss watch brands have an incredible street value, and we got tired of seeing our watches on ebay.”

While retail continues to have a major focus in the exhibit hall, asset tracking solutions also had a strong presence, as did systems for the healthcare and medical industry, which is rapidly endorsing RFID.

A panel discussion featuring the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EADS), the parent company of Airbus, provided an update on RFID at Airbus and at several EADS divisions. Carlo K. Nizam, head of value chain visibility and RFID at Airbus, says that there are at least 65 ongoing RFID products spanning the EADS group. Twenty one are targeted to be completed this year. Nizam and his colleagues painted a very clear picture of how RFID is spreading from Airbus to transform EADS Group’s other worldwide business divisions.

“When we first started this journey a few years back we were fighting for projects and fighting to convince people, and today it is quite the opposite,” Nizam said of the acceleration of projects within EADS. “What’s interesting is that it’s not only the number of projects increasing rapidly, but also the size of each project, the geographic territory and the complexity of the project.”

One current RFID project spans 10 manufacturing plants in five countries. Nizam estimates that EADS is probably about one-third of the way to a total RFID rollout and transformation throughout EADS.

RFID projects began spreading rapidly from Airbus to other EADS divisions in 2010, including Eurocopter (the world’s primary civil helicopter manufacturer), Astrium (a global leader in space programs) and Cassidian (a provider of state-of-the-art solutions for military and civil security).

The successes at Airbus are being duplicated and rolled across the other divisions. In most cases, 80 percent of the deployments at Airbus can be replicated at other business divisions, with the last 20 percent requiring tweaking.

“We try to reuse as much as possible because speed and cost are important drivers for us,” says Nizam. “We try to reuse 80 or 90 percent of the project and then customize the interface to the back end system which can be different.”

A major manufacturing facility being built in France will include RFID being built in to the facility as a standard feature.

“We’ve taken these existing processes and put them into a new building so just like you have power and ethernet in a building, RFID becomes just as normal,” says Jamil Khalil, head of sourcing and EADS coordination at Airbus.

The projects underway throughout EADS run the gamut. Almost every division is engaged in some sort of tool tracking program. At Astrium, RFID is being used to track compliance for lab coats that need to be tested for electrical continuity every 10 washings. RFID helps to manage the compliance and tracking process.

Astrium must keep track of paper documents for all of its military contracts and is required to perform inventory on the paper documents every year. In the future, the company may consider using RFID for document management to save on the labor currently required to track documents.

Another future application involves tagging between 300 to 500 thermal blankets that are utilized inside of the satellites that Astrium manufacturers. More testing is required before the company reaches that milestone.

With all of its success, EADS still faces challenges to keep up with the rapid adoption of RFID.

“We have a very mature portfolio of solutions, and we have a very healthy backlog of projects and an extremely interesting and innovative pipeline,” says Nizam. “So I’m very bullish about the situation.

“In terms of transformation, I think it probably means we are about one-third of the way there. There are a lot of challenges ahead of us. As all of these projects go into service, we have to operate and support them on a scale that we’ve never seen before.

“The other thing is that we are ramping up in terms of recruitment. We’ve more than tripled the size of the team since we started and we’ll probably double again. So finding good resources is key. The third and probably most important strategic challenge is engagement with our suppliers. In order to transform the industry and to be able to provide the benefits to our customers, we need the support the supply chain. That’s going to be the next strategic challenge for the next 12 months.”

The rugged washable Fujitsu UHF RFID tags, which are manufactured in Japan, are becoming commonplace in the healthcare and hospitality sectors.

The small, flexible RFID tags are attached to garments, linens, mats and accessory items, allowing customers to scan hundreds of articles simultaneously to track their inventory anywhere in a hospital, hotel or at a warehouse. Industrial laundries also use Fujitsu’s RFID tags to reduce operational costs caused by inaccurate shipping and receiving counts and costly manual counting of assets and deliverable items.

“The demand for our new washable RFID tags in healthcare, hotels and hospitality as well as laundries has exceeded even our own expectations,” said Pat Cathey, senior vice president of Fujitsu Frontech North America’s Retail Products Group. “Our manufacturing facility in Japan reacted quickly to the increased demand by doubling capacity while assuring both product quality and reliability that is the hallmark of Fujitsu.”

The washable tags are able to withstand more than 200 washings and the harsh chemicals associated with dry cleaning. They can also withstand temperatures of 250 degrees Fahrenheit for drying and 400 degrees Fahrenheit for ironing, as well as the pressure of water extraction systems.

The rugged, non-magnetizing tag design allows it to be used in MRI rooms as well as typical industrial autoclave systems used for healthcare and hospital sterilization. The small tags are extremely flexible, soft and durable which makes them ideal for flat linen, garments, accessories and a wide variety of laundered healthcare items.

With a reading range of more than six feet and the ability to read hundreds of tags simultaneously, the Fujitsu washable RFID tags represent a significant cost-saving solution compared to bar codes and other RFID systems, which require costly handling and single garment processing. The materials used in the Fujitsu tag are intended for long deployment cycles, allowing the tag to be reused into another garment linen item within the intended life-cycle time, reducing total cost of ownership.

BP has chosen Mojix Inc., a provider of wide-area passive RFID solutions, to deliver a track-and-trace technology solution that supplies real-time visibility of oil platform components moving from suppliers located around the globe to the platform’s construction site.

BP is deploying RFID to track supply chain operations during construction of a $7B oil platform.

BP is using the solution to monitor and manage supply chain assets like tracking crates, heavy lift and out-of-gauge equipment, containers and vessels to improve efficiency and safety during the construction phase.

Mojix’s STAR 3000 system delivers next-generation wide-area passive RFID technology at warehouses and yards, enhancing BP’s supply chain visibility and resulting in cost savings and risk mitigation for the oil and gas industry giant.

“Mojix has delivered a complete and innovative tracking solution that allows BP to monitor its cargo throughout the whole supply chain process,” said Andy Dovey, material management PSCM team lead for BP Clair Ridge. “This ensures that we can manage our materials in a more planned and efficient manner.”

BP deployed the Mojix STAR 3000 system as the cornerstone of its global track-and-trace of the supply chain for the construction of the Clair Ridge platform in Asia. Two different types of tag technology are used by BP including passive EPC Gen 2 RFID tags on all materials and components and GPS sensor telemetry tags on containers and heavy equipment. The passive tag and GPS location information is consolidated from around the globe into Mojix’s centralized, web-based, visibility platform. Finally, commercial ocean vessel tracking information is integrated to the same centralized visibility platform, giving BP an unprecedented single-point of view of the location and flow of goods on roads, oceans, and warehouses.

“Mojix is pleased to have been selected by one of the world’s largest companies to monitor all critical assets in a complex project such as the Clair Ridge project,” said Dr. Ramin Sadr, CEO and founder of Mojix. “Our technology brings significant new efficiencies, risk mitigation and cost savings to the entire supply chain that supports an offshore platform construction. We are pleased BP recognizes the value our technology brings to this important project.”

Lockheed Martin utilizes RFID for a number of tasks, including ensuring the authenticity of parts and subassemblies in its supply chain, tracking components for timely repair of customer equipment, and increasing the accuracy and safety of its missile defense systems.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin is educating hundreds of employees on the basics of RFID technology.

“By improving visibility of objects and reducing human error through automation, RFID technology can positively impact a vast array of operations and products,” said Denton Clark, corporate AIT manager for Lockheed. “With the data capture aspect of the technology maturing, companies like Lockheed can concentrate on processing the large volumes of data received from RFID systems, to make better business decisions.”

The move to educate hundreds of employees from varied business units across the entire company signals a strong move to make RFID a widely accepted business solution at Lockheed Martin.

“Incorporating a new technology into operations can be disruptive,” said Clark. “Lockheed turned to RFID Essentials to get hundreds of employees up to speed, so they feel comfortable. The more people understand, the more they can envision how to use RFID in our company and even across the industry. We need to take full advantage of our human capital in order to achieve our goal of mainstreaming RFID.”

Leslie Downey, principal and founder of RFID Revolution, says that a good amount of fear still exists among all enterprises when it comes to new technologies, especially those with the game-changing capabilities of RFID. She says there is also a good amount of “tunnel vision” when it comes to spreading RFID learnings from pilot projects.

“Many times project leaders acquire a strong knowledge of RFID but don’t have the time to educate the others on the project team,” says Downey. “That results in people developing a very narrow vision of what RFID can actually do within their company.”

Downey says that the average person takes about eight hours to complete the course, which is designed to help professionals understand the technology, how to apply it, how to measure the return on investment, and how to identify the most promising applications in their enterprise.

Collaborating with industry partners Avery Dennison, Motorola Solutions and Zebra, NXP has produced what it calls a “best-in-class solution that delivers consistently high performance in all global markets, reinforcing the company’s leadership in UHF chips.”

The UCODE 7 line from NXP will allow retailers to take inventory faster.

NXP claims that UCODE 7 establishes best-in-class credentials for global versatility, higher sensitivity and fast encoding. Sample ICs and labels with UCODE 7 are already available; high volume shipments will begin at the end of May.

The launch of UCODE 7 will enable retailers and vendors to tag much smaller items such as jewelry and also will allow tags to be read from a greater distance, enhancing stock and inventory applications.

“Modern supply chains stretch across continents, so it is important that RFID tags can deliver reliable performance in every region and across the different global frequency bands,” said Rutger Vrijen, vice president and general manager for RFID Tagging at NXP.

UCODE 7 establishes its best-in-class credentials in three key areas:

Global versatility: UCODE 7 enables the creation of RFID labels and tags that can be used across different regions operating at different frequency ranges. This means that manufacturers and retailers can maintain high performance using the same label or tag across the entire global supply chain, significantly reducing operating costs.

Higher sensitivity: UCODE 7’s higher sensitivity enables both smaller tag designs with equal performance to current tag geometries – which means that retailers and suppliers can tag much smaller items – and for current tag geometries to be read from a much greater distance. It also means that inventory management and stock-taking becomes easier and quicker, even in harsh RFID environments.

Fast encoding: NXP claims that UCODE 7 delivers the fastest encoding capability on the market, with 100 items programmed in a matter of milliseconds. This unprecedented level of performance can significantly increase throughput when encoding apparel, shoes, pharmaceuticals and other items in manufacturing and distribution centers or in-store; enabling high-speed brand protection and tracking processes.

“Our new inlay products with the UCODE 7 combine flexibility of size and performance to provide retailers more options for their media developments,” said Rick Bauer, vice president global inventory accuracy and loss prevention from Avery Dennison. “Our early testing with retailers has been very positive with the NXP UCODE 7. This new chip improves global RFID inlay performance across two major frequency bands with minimal loss of performance. We have found this chip to be very versatile in its performance and application to existing designs and our ability to facilitate new designs.”