Wal-Mart Expands RFID Plans

After meeting with its top 300 suppliers, the U.S.’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, said it will expand its RFID roll-out faster than expected.

Wal-Mart has been working towards a self-imposed January 2005 deadline to RFID-enable its North Texas operation, along with 100 of its suppliers.
The first full-scale operational test began on April 30th.

Today Wal-Mart said that it had expanded its supplier scope and
deployment plan for RFID to 200 more suppliers.
“We discussed implementation plans with our next top 200 suppliers,”
Linda Dillman, executive vice president and CIO for Wal-Mart, said
in a statement. “Over the next 16 months, we also plan to significantly
increase the number of Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club locations where
customers can benefit from this revolutionary technology.”

Under the schedule announced today by Wal-Mart, it expects to be live in
up to six distribution centers and 250 Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores by
June 2005. By October of 2005, those numbers are planned to more than double, with tags deployed in up to 13 distribution centers and 600
Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores.

Erik Michielsen, senior analyst for ABI Research, believes that
Wal-Mart’s announcement is indicative of the industry’s continued maturation.
“It’s great news for the RFID industry, because it just continues to show
that Wal-Mart is committed to the technology, and that its suppliers have
been and continue to be actively pursuing a better understanding of what
RFID can do for them,” Michielsen told internetnews.com.

Companies that were in the first two quarters of this year testing the technology are now doing small implementations that are built for scale, Michielsen said.
“Companies that are active in the market have a much better understanding of
whom to work with, whom to partner with and how to scale the RFID projects
based on business cases,” he said.

“We’re still in the infancy in terms of scale, but that infancy is still hundreds of millions of dollars,” Michielsen said. “The progress that Wal-Mart is demonstrating with its
announcement this week is indicative of the progress that has been
made.”

The pilot project that began on April 30th of this year has
been progressing well according to Wal-Mart.

“We’re seeing the positive results we expected,” Wal-Mart’s Dillman said
in the statement. “We also anticipated hitting a few minor bumps in the
road, which has happened. The whole reason for a pilot is to fix any last
minute issues and clear the path for a smooth implementation. That’s what
we’re doing, and we’re looking forward to January 2005 with great
expectations.”

Wal-Mart said that it expects consumer to begin seeing more products that
carry the EPCglobal symbol as it continues to expand
the number of supplier using the tags every few weeks. The products
that are expected to be tagged include larger items such as lawnmowers and
bicycles, as well as electronic products.