For years, Alpha Baking sent out thousands of reusable assets every day, not knowing how long those bakery trays would be tied up in its supply chain, or if they would even return. Before the company discovered RFID technology, even manual tracking processes were too cumbersome to track the trays.

In September, Alpha Baking concluded a nine-month pilot to track about 30,000 reusable trays. The distributor of fresh and frozen breads has greatly reduced its tray losses, realizing from the data collected that 80 percent of its asset losses can be connected to 20 percent of its customer base.