UNILEVER GAINS IN TEST OF RFID STANDARD

MICHAEL GARRY

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. - Unilever U.S. here has been able to improve its ability to access and analyze RFID data received from retailers in a test of new technology based on a soon-to-be ratified standard.

The standard, known as Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS), is one of a group of standards that make up the EPCglobal Network, a system comparable to the Internet through which retailers and suppliers will share RFID data.

EPCIS facilitates the exchange and analysis of raw RFID data for both retailers and manufacturers by associating the data with well-defined business processes or transactions, such as purchase orders or advance shipping notices. In addition, the standard defines interfaces allowing the data to be exchanged between different software.

EPCglobal, a division of GS1, Brussels, is expected to formally ratify the EPCIS standard in two months, according to Peter Rieman, executive vice president, T3Ci, Mountain View, Calif., an RFID data analysis firm.

With the EPCIS technology, "it's a lot easier to do analysis on the data," said Simon Ellis, Unilever's supply chain futurist. "We don't have to go find it." This becomes more important as the quantity of RFID data escalates, he added.

Unilever has been running its EPCIS test, using a relational database from IBM, Armonk, N.Y., since July. Overall, the manufacturer has been testing RFID tagging of pallets and cases since 2004, conducting about 200,000 reads per year.

Unilever has focused its RFID efforts on tracking whether promotional products are placed accurately in stores in a timely manner. Though Ellis declined to name the retailers working with Unilever, Rieman identified them as Wal-Mart Stores, Albertsons and Target.

Unilever is consolidating all EPCIS RFID data from the three retailers, based on reads of pallets and cases for 10 stockkeeping units, into the IBM database, and is also sharing some of the data with T3Ci for analysis. Ellis said the test, one of the first to evaluate the effectiveness of EPCIS, will run through the end of the year.