Taking Action
Like most consumer product companies, Kimberly-Clark invests significantly in in-store product promotions, using a manufactured display as a primary vehicle to feature promoted product. These displays are typically shipped from Kimberly-Clark's contracted manufacturers directly to retail stores. All too frequently, operational challenges prevent these displays from reaching the sales floor at the beginning of the promotional period. Industry statistics show that between 15 percent to 40 percent of stores fail to move displays to the sales floor on time, missing critical promotional windows and the opportunity to increase sales.
To solve this complex operational problem, Kimberly-Clark partnered with OATSystems to develop a portable EPC solution. OATSystems is Kimberly-Clark's middleware provider for EPC RFID solutions at internal sites. "Our desire was to deploy a similar business process, but in a portable format, so OATSystems was a natural choice for the application," says Phil Therrien, EPC manager, Kimberly-Clark, whose chief responsibility is to develop technology and business case strategies for the company's EPC RFID initiative.
OPERATIONAL OBSTACLES
Within the partnership, Kimberly- Clark's role was to identify the business requirements, identify hardware and software solutions that would meet its needs, integrate the right components, and finally test and deploy the solution. As stated earlier, display portability -- when tagged with EPC RFID -- was the main requirement of the project and challenges arose early on.
Within the partnership, Kimberly- Clark's role was to identify the business requirements, identify hardware and software solutions that would meet its needs, integrate the right components, and finally test and deploy the solution. As stated earlier, display portability -- when tagged with EPC RFID -- was the main requirement of the project and challenges arose early on.
"As we began to focus on promotional displays as an opportunity for applying EPC technology to enhance a business process, we identified that displays often shipped from non-traditional distribution points lacked EPC RFID capability," says Therrien. "Often displays were produced and shipped by third-party contract packaging vendors who lacked RFID technology expertise."
The solution rested in finding a compact devise for encoding EPC RFID tags in the field, whereas most applications rely on desk top printer and/or encoding devises.
"That led us to ADASA, which had developed its belt mountable encoder," says Therrien. "It was a perfect fit for our vision of a compact tool set that would fit in a standard size roller-case."
A MOBILE RESULT
The result of the collaboration of Kimberly-Clark, OATSystems and ADASA is the OAT Mobile Tag. The solution, which incorporates the Mobile Tagging Station from ADASA, enables Kimberly-Clark's third-party contract manufacturers to apply RFID tags to promotional displays. In-store RFID readers record when tagged displays reach the backroom of the store and again when the displays reach the sales floor. Once a tag is read, data is sent to Kimberly-Clark and the retailer showing whether the display has reached the sales floor on time. Then, Kimberly-Clark and its retail customers can intervene promptly if displays fail to reach the sales floor on time.
The result of the collaboration of Kimberly-Clark, OATSystems and ADASA is the OAT Mobile Tag. The solution, which incorporates the Mobile Tagging Station from ADASA, enables Kimberly-Clark's third-party contract manufacturers to apply RFID tags to promotional displays. In-store RFID readers record when tagged displays reach the backroom of the store and again when the displays reach the sales floor. Once a tag is read, data is sent to Kimberly-Clark and the retailer showing whether the display has reached the sales floor on time. Then, Kimberly-Clark and its retail customers can intervene promptly if displays fail to reach the sales floor on time.
According to Therrien, Kimberly- Clark has been able to expand EPC RFID tagging to a variety of locations with minimum investment and operational disruption to its internal processes. The company is using this application to support several pilots in North America and at least one retailer will be rolling out EPC-enabled promotion execution monitoring as a fully commercial process in 2008.
By combining the use of its portable EPC RFID capability and event tracking tools, Kimberly-Clark now enjoys clear real-time visibility to store execution of its displays. So far, Therrien and his team have learned that execution to the sales floor ranges from 55 percent to 95 percent.
"Obviously this is a wide range, which suggests process variability," says Therrein. "We have developed internal capabilities to push daily execution reports to our field merchandising agents so they know which stores have executed on-time, and which have not. As they visit the stores to take corrective action, they are also collecting feedback on root cause of late execution."
Armed with new insights, Kimberly-Clark can further improve the promotional process, including packaging design, store attributes that impact execution and merchandising strategies.
"By leveraging these insights along with improving store level execution, we are driving toward improving our overall promotion effectiveness -- ultimately benefiting the shopper," concludes Therrein. CG