월마트, RFID 미부착 납품업체에 요금 부과 계획 발표 (NIA)

아래는 Information Week에 게재된 기사를 한국정보사회진흥원(NIA)의 글로벌IT네트워크에 소개한 내용입니다. 

국내외에서 RFID의 적용이 확산되고 있는 가운데 그 원조격인 월마트가 구체적인 적용 일정을 제시했군요.  

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월마트, RFID 미부착 납품업체에 요금 부과 계획 발표

 

o 미국의 대표적인 할인매장인 월마트는 2008년 1월 30일부터 자사의 Sam''s Club*

   텍사스 물류 센터로 들어오는 모든 물품에 대해 RFID 태그를 부착하지 않은 팔레트

   하나당 2달러의 요금을 부과할 것이라고 발표
  - 상기 시책의 시행으로 징수될 요금으로 향후 Sam''s Club이 각 팔레트에 태그를

    부착하는데 소요되는 비용을 충당할 예정
   * Sam''s Club는 월마트가 자회사로 운영하는 창고형 할인매장

 

o 또한 월마트는 2010년까지 22개 물류센터를 통과하는 Sam''s Club에 납품되는 모

   든 제품들에 대해 판매 아이템 수준에서 RFID 부착을 요구

 

o 이에 월마트는 향후 추진 일정에 관한 서한을 납품업체에 발송하였음
  - 2008년 1월 30일 : 텍사스 물류센터에 대한 팔레트 단위 태그 부착

  - 2008년 10월 31일 : 추가적인 4개 물류센터에 대한 팔레트 단위 태그 부착 및 텍사스

     물류센터에 대한 케이스 및 혼합 팔레트 단위 태그 부착
  - 2009년 1월 30일 : 나머지 17개 물류센터에 대한 케이스 및 혼합 팔레트 단위의 태그

    부착 및 텍사스 물류센터에 대한 판매 아이템 태그 부착
  - 2010년 1월 30일 : 추가적인 4개 물류센터에 대한 판매 아이템 태그 부착
  - 2010년 10월 31일 : 나머지 17개 물류센터에 대한 판매 아이템 태그 부착

참고자료 : InformationWeek, 2008. 1.17

o 2003년 월마트는 모든 납품업자들로 하여금 2005년까지 제품의 케이스 및 팔레트에 태그를 부착할 것을 의무화하였음 o Sam''s Club은 월마트보다 취급 품목 및 납품업체 수가 적고 구매자 대부분이 박스 및 팔레트 단위로 대량 구매함에 따라 상대적으로 적은 비용으로 RFID 시스템 도입이 가능할 것으로 전망

Wal-Mart Sets Deadline For Sam's Club Suppliers To Use RFID

Wal-Mart says it'll charge suppliers to its warehouse stores a fee of $2 for every pallet not tagged with RFID starting Jan. 30.

By Mary Hayes Weier, Jan. 17, 2008
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205900237

Wal-Mart is stepping up pressure on suppliers to comply with its three-year-old RFID mandate. The retailer says it will charge a $2 fee for each pallet not tagged with RFID that comes into a Texas distribution center for its Sam's Club warehouse stores beginning Jan. 30.

Wal-Mart also has told suppliers that in less than three years, all Sam's Club products passing through 22 distribution centers need to be tagged with RFID at the selling-unit item level.

The charge going into affect this month is to cover Sam's Club's cost to affix tags on each pallet, said a Wal-Mart spokesman, since the retailer needs to have every pallet tagged to meet inventory efficiency goals. The tag fee is "really designed as a short-term solution for those suppliers that may need a little more time to implement their own tagging solution," the spokesman told InformationWeek.

In 2003, Wal-Mart issued a mandate for all of its suppliers to tag their pallets and cases of product with RFID by 2005 to let both sides better track products in the supply chain and improve store inventory levels. Yet the retailer hasn't taken a strong-arm approach with the well over 15,000 suppliers that still haven't complied with RFID for products heading to its Wal-Mart stores.

Now Wal-Mart seems focused on turning its 700-store Sam's Club division into an example of RFID supply-chain technology in action, down to the item level, by 2010. It makes sense: Sam's Club has far fewer suppliers than Wal-Mart stores, and customers buy products by the case, the pallet, or individual packages that are larger (like a 48-count box of granola bars) than what's typically sold in retail stores. That makes the cost of RFID tags, at about 20 cents a piece, more digestible for Sam's Club suppliers. The division contributed $41.5 billion to Wal-Mart's $344.9 billion in revenues for its 2007 fiscal year.

Wal-Mart's been talking to Sam's Club suppliers for months about RFID compliance, and sent them a letter dated Jan. 7 that includes a 21-month timeline to have RFID in place. The timeline is as follows:

-- Jan 30, 2008: pallet-level tagging for DeSoto, Tex., distribution center.

-- Oct. 31, 2008: pallet-level tagging for an additional four distribution centers, case- and mixed-pallet level tagging for Texas distribution center.

-- Jan. 30, 2009: pallet-level tagging for remaining 17 distribution centers, case- and mixed-pallet level tagging for an additional four distribution centers.

-- Oct. 31, 2009: case- and mixed-pallet level tagging for the remaining 17 distribution centers; selling-unit -level tagging for Texas distribution center.

-- Jan. 30, 2010: selling-unit-tagging for an additional four distribution centers.

-- Oct. 31, 2010: selling-unit-tagging for remaining 17 distribution centers

The pallet fee apparently came as a surprise to some suppliers. What's more, it'll rise to as high a $3 for suppliers who don't meet compliance by next year. "We started getting calls from people on Jan. 8 and 9 about this," said Jim Caudill, senior VP of marketing at RFID tag and software supplier Xterprise Inc. on Jan. 11, Xterprise began offering a service to help companies quickly ramp up. Suppliers can provide configuration requirements and order their RFID tags online from Xterprise, which will print and send them in overnight mail. The letter was sent because "we had to provide a clear direction that stated precisely and exactly what we're asking of them, and the dates by which we expect them to be in compliance," said the Wal-Mart spokesman. "[Suppliers] have asked for that clarity."

All this has companies that came on early with Wal-Mart's RFID mandate, like Daisy Brand, smiling smugly from the catbird seat. The manufacturer of sour cream and cottage cheese started shipping RFID-tagged cases and pallets to Wal-Mart in the fall of 2004, and now all of its pallets and cases have RFID, including those headed to Sam's Club. Daisy says its investment in RFID has been a boon, helping it better manage the flow of its perishable products through Wal-Mart stores and ensure marketing promotions proceed as planned.

Using Wal-Mart's Retail Link Web site for suppliers, Daisy Brand's information systems manager Kevin Brown says he can track, by lot number, how quickly pallets of product make it to stores and when they're unpacked, since Wal-Mart has readers at its dock entrances and on its cardboard-case compactors. If a Wal-Mart store is scheduled to run a sales promotion on sour cream, certain information can ensure that the promotion is taking place as planned. For example, the destruction of a large number of cases suggests that the contents of the cases were used to to fill up the waist-high coolers typically used for refrigerated-product promotions. In fact, some in the industry speculate Wal-Mart will soon require any retailer running a promotion in its stores to use RFID.

Daisy already is in compliance with the Sam's Club mandate to have cases and pallets tagged for all distribution centers by October 2009. But Brown admits things get interesting at the item level compliance required in 2010. Since Sam's Club is a warehouse store, some individual selling units are the cases themselves, so that won't be a problem. "For inexpensive consumable items, it will get down to the value derived from tagging at the item level," Brown said. "I'm looking forward to learning more about their item-level plan as it evolves."

RFID industry experts say item-level tagging can help with "shrinkage" (which typically means customer and employee theft) and also aid in costly product recalls. Sam's Club participated in a few of those last years, including a recall of Cargill beef patties for E. Coli contamination in the fall.

The Sam's Club pallet fee should serve as a wake-up call to suppliers that Wal-Mart is still serious about RFID. And as Daisy Brand shows, RFID could prove beneficial far beyond complying with a customer's mandate.