Supply Chain Solutions Provider Logs RFID Win In China

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January 11, 2006 (6:12 PM EST)

By Laurie Sullivan , TechWeb Technology News

A supply chain solutions provider said Wednesday it has implemented RFID products at a top display device producer's manufacturing facility in China.

Manhattan Associates Inc. worked with Proview International Holdings Ltd. to deploy radio frequency identification (RFID) applications at its Shenzhen, China, manufacturing plant, the Atlanta company said.

Proview manufactures 12 million CRT monitors, 11.4 million LCD monitors and 780,000 flat panel TVs annually, and needed hardware, software and processes to meet compliance mandates from retailers, such as Best Buy Co. Inc. This means affixing RFID- embedded labels on products before they ship to retail distribution centers. "Proview is putting RFID tags on computer monitors," said Greg Gilbert, director of product management, at Manhattan Associates Inc.

It took Manhattan Associates three months to install EPC Manager and Integration Manager. The project was completed in November. The software platforms were integrated with Proview's legacy distribution applications. RFID readers collect the data read from the tags. The information flows from the readers into Manhattan Associates' EPC Manager database where the data is stored.

Serial numbers and electronic product code (EPC) numbers are stored in the system to let the user cross-reference the two numbers. The data is also integrated back to the legacy system to generate reports for internal use or Advance Shipment Notices (ASNs) for the retailer.

Proview is the first RFID solution Manhattan Associates has rolled out in China. Oracle Corp., SAP AG, and Microsoft Corp. have been working with or talking with customers to deploy RFID-based applications in China. U.S.-based companies increasing the number of items tagged they ship to retailers are looking to push the process into the manufacturing cycle. RFID in China is a developing market for manufacturing, although Markets and Research puts RFID use in China's consumer market segment at approximately $627 million (5.059 billion Yuan) by the year 2009, up from $150 million (1.2 billion Yuan) in 2004.

"There are other types of RFID technology being used in China," Gilbert said. For RFID EPC specific technology, "I'd be surprised if there were more than five manufacturers putting tags on products before they ship them to the United States."

Manufacturers are attempting to move processes to manufacturing facilities because it's more cost effective to apply the tags in the production line, rather than ship the product to the United States and then tag them. "We found early on that hourly labor in the United States to apply the tag on products was sometimes more expensive than the tags themselves," Gilbert said. "The tag prices have dropped, but I don't believe the labor associated with applying the tag has changed since the evaluation was done about a year and a half ago."

Gilbert said customers began to ask more about putting RFID tags on product in China since July.