RFID, the baton of the hottest retail industry in

The baton of the future of retail industry - RFID

1 development and current situation of RFID technology

RFID (Radio Frequency ID) technology was born during World War II, but its development has been stagnant for more than 50 years since then. In recent years, its application technology environment is becoming more and more mature, and it has sprung up, attracting the attention of many enterprises. RFID directly inherits the concept of radar, and thus develops a dynamic new AIDC technology - RFID technology. In 1948, Harris tockman published "communication using reflected power", which laid the theoretical foundation of RFID

the improvement and application of radar from 1941 to 1950 gave birth to RFID technology, and laid the theoretical foundation of RFID technology in 1948

from 1951 to 1960, RFID technology was mainly in the stage of laboratory research

since 2001, RFID products have become more diverse. Active electronic tags, passive electronic tags and semi passive electronic tags have all been developed. The cost of electronic tags has been continuously reduced and the scale of applications has been expanded

in recent years, due to the sharp decline in the cost of this technology and the improvement of its functions, the retail industry, information industry, logistics industry and medical industry have paid rapid attention to RFID technology. The retail giant Wal Mart asked its top 100 suppliers to implement pallet level RFID Management by January 2005 in July 2004, which made the RFID technology in the state of gradual development gain unprecedented attention. The U.S. Department of Defense issued its memorandum on RFID policy in July 2004, requiring all its suppliers to implement RFID Management before January 2005

the report of allied business world shows that the global RFID market in 2002 was US $1.1 billion, of which Japan accounted for us $180million and the United States for us $600million; In 2005, the global RFID market was US $3billion; It will reach $7billion in 2010. The average growth rate of RFID market size is 26%

in 2004, the China Association for standardization and the logistics application Standardization Working Group conducted a survey, and the results pointed out that in the next three to five years, China needs at least 3billion RFID tags every year. Among them, 83million labels will be needed for consumer electronics, 800million labels for cigarette products, 130million labels for alcohol products, and about billion labels for information electronic products. The above figures only involve some products in the field of commercial circulation. If we consider other fields, such as modern service industry, manufacturing industry, postal service, medicine and health, military and other fields, the figures will be even more amazing. In March, 2003, Gartner predicted in symposium it view everywhere XPO 2003 that RFID technology is a technology that will gradually begin to be applied on a large scale in the last two to five years (2005 to 2008). According to the prediction of arc Consulting Group, the market demand of RFID in the global supply chain field alone will reach 4billion US dollars by 2008

in the long run, it is very necessary and historical necessity for Wal Mart to propose the use of RFID technology to suppliers. Suppliers accept the requirements of retailers to use RFID technology, which may increase some costs from now on, but in the long run, the use of RFID technology is very worthwhile and will certainly produce better results. Just like the use of bar code technology, not only retailers can benefit, but all links of the whole supply chain can benefit. If we say that the application of bar code technology for consumers, can be faster checkout, more effective choice of goods, but also conducive to convenient return. Then for suppliers, using RFID can know the inventory situation faster. It is precisely because of RFID technology that the retail computer system can realize the single product management of commodities, which enables businesses and production enterprises to reasonably arrange production and logistics distribution on the basis of a clear grasp of inventory. Therefore, the use of RFID technology will make suppliers and sellers win-win

$page break $2 the technical principle of RFID and Metro's future supermarket

radio frequency identification (RFID) - as a high-tech and the basis of information standardization for rapid, real-time and accurate information collection and processing, it is a non-contact automatic identification technology. Its principle is to use the RF signal and its spatial coupling and transmission characteristics to realize the automatic identification of static and moving objects to be identified

RFID system generally consists of two parts, electronic tag and reader. In the application, the electronic tag is attached to the object to be identified, and the reader is used to automatically read out the agreed identification information in the tag in a non-contact manner when the object with the tag passes through its reading range, so as to realize the function of automatically identifying the object or collecting the identification information of the object. Electronic tag is the real data carrier of RF system

after completing the production of products, the manufacturer replaces the bar code of goods with RFID on each product. Each RFID uses the commodity number plus the serial number to identify the uniqueness of each product. This way is used to identify the cash register operation at the inventory, receiving and point of sale. Because each product has a unique identification code, all goods can be managed in the smallest unit. Because the goods of the smallest unit can be controlled, it is more beneficial to the retail sales, including the promotion on the shelf, theft prevention, consumer behavior analysis, and so on

if a single product is packed in dozens or boxes, RFID is installed on the carton or its packaging container to track and identify the shape, location and quantity of delivered goods of the carton or container. In addition to the more detailed information provided by the demand/supply planning, it also increases the visibility of repacking. For the shipment operation of the whole board purchase, which needs to be based on the box, it is more convenient than the picking, packaging and shipment of small units. RFID tags are set on pallets, cage cars, distribution trolleys, etc. for identification and reading, so as to track and identify logistics loading tools and provide replenishment information of suppliers in time. The logistics center can also speed up the receiving operation time, strengthen the information management of goods inspection and listing, and effectively control inventory. In the view of both retailers and suppliers, reducing inventory is to reduce costs

rfid can not only help enterprises solve the problems of high inventory, difficult management, easy damage of goods in the process of transportation and storage, and difficult identification of counterfeit goods in the supply chain system; In addition, the serial number, price, date and other information of the goods recorded by the labels embedded in the goods that emit radio waves. RFID technology allows the staff to know how many items are in the box without opening the box for inspection when the goods enter and leave the warehouse. This not only reduces the time and personnel costs, but also improves the security of the whole warehousing process and the profitability of the enterprise

for customers, when shopping, they will no longer have to wait in line for the counter staff to scan the bar code of the purchased products. As long as the RFID tag on the goods is used, the information such as the name and total price of the goods can be transmitted to the electronic reader at the exit in real time to complete the checkout and payment action

compared with traditional bar codes, RFID has the following advantages

● no light source is required, and data can even be read through external materials

● long service life, able to work in harsh environment

● it can be easily embedded or attached to products of different shapes and types

● longer reading distance

● data can be written and accessed, and the writing time is less than that of printing barcode

● the content of the label can be changed dynamically

● be able to process multiple labels at the same time

● the data access of the tag is password protected, with higher security

● it can track and locate the object attached to the RFID tag

● multiple labels can be identified without direct visibility or specific direction

● use the network to share information and increase visibility

in the future store built by metro, we can see the future of applying RFID Technology: entering the store, the future begins: a personal shopping assistant (PSA) that can display your shopping list and indicate where you can accurately find each product; A commodity scale that can "see" you weighing commodities; If necessary, you can change the electronic digital price "label" on the shelf once an hour; The image display screen that can be updated every minute and spread all over the store to display today's specials; In the wine corridor, there is a computer that can prepare the best wine for your dinner tonight - and then a flashing display bar on the floor will guide you to the location of the bottle of wine. Customers can scan the goods themselves when putting them into the shopping cart, so that they can get more dawn shares: mass production of a variety of new elastomer materials & nbsp; Performance growth accelerates commodity and price information. PSA includes a built-in ean barcode scanner. The scanned goods are displayed on the PSA screen, and the price is displayed at the same time. Then, when checking out, customers only need to hand the PSA to the cashier, who can print out the price list and total price, without taking out all the items in the shopping cart and putting them on the conveyor belt

in the fresh goods department, the smart scale equipped with electronic vision system can "see" the weighed goods and print a bar code label for checkout. The speed ratio can reach as much as one million times, so the cashier does not need to weigh the goods. The camera and special software can identify each product according to the surface texture, color, size and thermal image. If the mixed goods are placed on the scale, an error message will be displayed and the label will not be printed. Therefore, only one type of goods can be called at a time; For example, three tomatoes, or four oranges, or six potatoes. Smart scale is only used for bulk goods; Pre packaged goods have bar codes

at the same time, in the warehouse and even on the shelf, RFID tags can track goods from the distribution center, warehouse, shelf to checkout

before delivery, the goods are classified and packed by Metro distribution logistics system (MDL) and sent to the pallet of the central warehouse. Each container and pallet has a smart chip containing the barcode of goods in the shelf and the number of pallets. The warehouse personnel read this data into an electronic RFID commodity management system connected to the future store. When the store requests replenishment, the loaded pallets are transported to the export area of the central warehouse, where there is an RFID transmitter to record the product identification. At this time, the inventory management system changes the status of goods from "in inventory" to "in transportation"

among the people who buy plastic bags, when the store receives goods in the future, employees carry the pallet from the truck through another RFID door at the back door of the store. At this time, Shang