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Wal-Mart demands double RFID chips with groceries
500 newbies come on board

By Jo Best

Published: Wednesday 13 September 2006

RFID pioneer and corporate monolith Wal-Mart is speeding on with its deployment of the track-and-trace technology.

It announced that 500 new stores and clubs will roll out RFID for case and pallet level tracking before the end of the fiscal year, doubling the number of locations using it.

The new deployments will all use Gen2 tags, with all Wal-Mart's other RFID-enabled locations - which use first generation chips - being converted once all pallets bearing Gen1 tags have made their way through the system.

Wal-Mart is also doubling the number of suppliers that will use RFID, with its next 300 largest suppliers committed to having tagging systems live by the start of next year.

The world's largest retailer raised eyebrows and hackles among some after mandating its top 100 suppliers had to install the technology by the start of last year.

However, Wal-Mart CIO Rollin Ford says the chain is only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of benefits. After hiring researchers from the University of Arkansas to look into the cold, hard advantages of using RFID, Wal-Mart found over-orders dropped by 10 per cent and out-of-stocks plummeted by 16 per cent.

Ford added in a statement the uber-grocer is "actively engaged in designing some new initiatives that will accelerate our programme even further" and is "aggressively moving forward with deployments".