As part of a constant Continuous Improvement process, financial executives need to be aware of useful technologies in the market so as to enable them to streamline, simplify and standardize their process flow in their working place.

One such area is the using of the RFID technology particularly in their inventory control.
RFID uses radio frequency waves to transfer data between a reader/scanner and a movable item to identify, track or locate it. It does not require physical sight or contact between the reader and the tagged item, making it more efficient than traditional bar codes.

Incidentally, RFID technology has its many uses which includes managing security, access control, logistics as well as real time information access and update with tags, sensors, reader and state-of-the-art business application systems.

For this article, we confine ourselves to the discussion of using RFID for inventory control purposes.

RFID is an extremely useful workflow tool to manage inventory.

RFID system is primarily used in the retail industry.

In a typical retail outlet:

• All stocked item contain an inexpensive read-only tag that stores the product code and its description, including the manufacturer, brand, batch number, expiry date and price.
• The shelves, exit gates and warehouses are fitted with a small antenna that senses the RFID tags and reads the information to update the inventory system on a real-time basis.

The company derive the following benefits from utilizing such RFID system:

• provisions for total assets visibility,
• full inventory history with tracking and reduced inventory-stocking levels that facilitates “just-in-time” deliveries,
• ensures better process control for products in the facility,
• reduced shelf space and
• lead-time that shortens across docking time
• provides higher level security
• fewer errors

However, this is not only confined to retail outlets, we see RFID being deploy in Warehouse and Container depots and also in Car Manufacturing facilities.

To be successful in deploying RFID system in your company, will depends largely on its integration with the existing business applications and enterprise solutions. If the interface is smooth, this will avoid user dissonance and even can assist further in the inter-operability of data and systems for two or more different RFID sources.

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