Hooked on Compliance
Although not one of Wal-Mart's Top 100 suppliers bound to the January 2005 RFID compliance mandate, the $500 million frozen-fish importer Beaver Street Fisheries began proactively exploring RFID not long after Wal-Mart's mandate was first announced. "We were the first of 37 companies to volunteer to meet Wal-Mart's January 2005 RFID mandate," says Howard Stockdale, CIO, Beaver Street Fisheries. "We've always prided ourselves on supplying additional value to our customers. If Wal-Mart is looking at RFID, then we want to be the value-added supplier able to supply product with RFID." This down-to-business approach has since paid off as Beaver Street Fisheries met its compliance deadline more than a year ahead of schedule and is now capitalizing on this fast-start, looking for ways in which RFID can improve internal operations.
Compliance Driven
Despite its smaller footprint, Beaver Street Fisheries announced plans at the start of 2004 to spend between $50,000 and $75,000 to build an RFID-simulation lab and ensure that it met Wal-Mart's RFID demands. Beaver Street Fisheries tapped RFID systems developer, Franwell, and supply chain systems integrator, The Danby Group, to implement an RFID compliance solution called rfid>Genesis, built on GlobeRanger's iMotion Edgeware platform. The implementation phase included setting up compliance stations where RFID labels are encoded with a Zebra R110 smart label printer/encoder and applied to cases of tilapia, crab, lobster and other frozen fish products and then validated through an RFID portal.
Identifying Obstacles
Throughout the pilot phase, Beaver Street Fisheries faced, and in some cases, is still dealing with, obstacles commonly met on the path to RFID compliance -- RFID technology readiness being one of the larger hindrances. "The technology is not quite there yet to read every tag on every case, especially internal cases," says Stockdale. "And early on, tags are not as reliable. You're lucky to get 90 percent good tags out of a roll and they may die sometime near the end of the process, but they are getting better." Add to that, the current high-cost of tags and the hardships of reading RF energy through liquid. Ice, however, proved not to affect RFID reads during pilot tests -- a good sign for Beaver Street Fisheries as the majority of its inventory is packaged in ice.
Another non-issue for Beaver Street Fisheries is the challenge of adapting to emerging industry standards for EPC and RFID. Zebra R110 UHF EPC multi-protocol printers/encoders can be easily upgraded to include future protocols as existing standards evolve and new ones emerge, thus protecting Beaver Street Fisheries' RFID investments long-term against the uncertainty of changing protocols and standards. "We have a good, solid investment roadmap with Zebra because you don't throw away the printers/encoders once Generation 2 comes," says Stockdale. Beaver Street Fisheries' RFID readers from Symbol via The Danby Group are also firmware upgradeable.
Mission Complete
As mentioned earlier, Beaver Street Fisheries was shipping RFID-tagged cases and pallets to Wal-Mart in November 2004 -- one year and one month ahead of its January 2006 deadline, and still in front of Wal-Mart's Top 100 January 2005 deadline. Right now, Beaver Street Fisheries is shipping three of its frozen seafood products: Jumbo Breaded Shrimp, Catfish Nuggets and Snow Crab Clusters. Under its Sea Best brand, Beaver Street Fisheries expects shipping to ramp up volume throughout the year as testing continues. "By January 2006, we will be shipping everything to Wal-Mart," says Stockdale.
ROI in Provided Value
So now that Beaver Street Fisheries has achieved compliance on a slap and ship level, it will turn its focus toward gaining ROI through integration. According to Stockdale, ROI will come through business process re-engineering and using the concept of RFID to make Beaver Street Fisheries faster and more efficient for its customers. "A lot of ROI lies in readiness, in our ability to provide value to our customers so we can grow our partnerships," says Stockdale "That has got to be some sort of return."
Preparedness is Key
Beaver Street Fisheries proves that RFID isn't just for billion-dollar companies. Howard Stockdale urges other small to midsized business to start now as opposed to taking a wait-and-see stance. "At some point you may be required to deliver cases and pallets that are RFID-enabled in order to even get a contract with a particular customer," says Stockdale. "It is critically important to start now, even if that means just being serious about learning and understanding RFID."