Retail giant adopts Gen2 for RFID

Metro Group, the uber retailer and all round RFID enthusiast, has upgraded its RFID to Gen2 tags and readers.

The retail chain has upgraded its cash and carry stores across Germany using hardware and software from IBM and Intermec.

The technology is currently being used to track cases and will be extended to cover pallets over the course of the summer.

RFID is expected to reach revenues of $3bn by 2010, according to analyst house Gartner, driven largely by the retail sector.

Metro, the world's fourth biggest retailer, has been using RFID as part of its supply chain for around 18 months to monitor stock availability. It also has a flagship site - known as the Future Store - which examines experimental uses of RFID.

Among the applications on trial are RFID-enabled self checkouts, which can instantly read the items in a shopper's basket and bill them, and smart shelves, which analyse the availability of the products on the shelves and report low stock levels.