Re: Happy Hanukkah - even to the CEO of Walmart

On Dec 5, 7:43 am, gumboman <dontemai...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 21:19:25 -0800 (PST), susan <frogandtoa...@xxxxxxx>
wrote:







I have clients who are WalMart vendors and I've never heard of this. I
hear a lot of complaints as to how WalMart will squeeze them on prices
but never that they had trouble getting paid. In fact, WalMart, along
with some other large retailers, are pushing hard for RFID
implementation down through the supply chain. WalMart has had a lot of
trouble on their end (they can't get it to work at all) but the theory
is as soon as your goods are scanned at a WalMart site, whether that
be through a direct shipment to a store or a DC, that if the scan
matches the invoice (which is transmitted via EDI) then the vendor
will get an electronic payment within a couple of days.

that makes more sense than what I heard-of course, having a contract
with WalMart is a gold mine, but not enough to offset having to
finance their inventory for them... (what's RFID? I know about EDI
processing, we do that too.)

RFID = Radio Frequency Identification Device

and in the wrong hands (government) it's a very, very, very very,
very, very, very ..... dangerous technology.

There are two types, active and passive, although the passive is the
overwhelming leader in units produced. It's basically a small, silicon
transmitter/receiver embedded in something (in this case a box that
contains a good sold) which allows tracking by either a hand held or
static (immovable) transmitter/detector. It's termed 'passive' because
the tag lies dormant until activated by the tracking device which puts
out a radio frequency signal that turns the tag on and it will then
transmit it's 'identity', also in the form of a radio signal, that can
then be 'read' by the handheld/static transmitter/detector.

Say I sell WalMart 20 pallets of TVs that each contain 20 TVs per
pallet. As it stands now Ihave someone at my warehouse load, count and
verify ID's of the TVs manually. That data is recorded and the truck
is sent on its way to WalMart. Once the truck arrives at WalMart the
same process occurs on their end. They count the TVs, record serial
numbers, etc. It's all very labor intensive.

Now suppose I 'tag' each TV before it leaves my warehouse with an RFID
tag that has a unique identity, thereby giving each box a unique
identity. I can build a static transmitter/receiver over my dock door
that will activate the tags, read the resulting transmittal from the
tags and record the information all in the time it takes the pallet
jack driver to drive a pallet of goods onto the long haul truck -
about 5 seconds. The device over the dock door looks like driving
under the bottom half of a goal post on a football field. So instead
of doing these things manually everything is automated.

WalMart (or whomever) has the same type of device at their end. When
the goods come off the truck they are 'read' and if the info I sent to
WalMart electronically when I shipped the goods matches what WalMart
reads when they receive the goods (basically, the tags have to match
up), then the invoice is considered complete (the invoices are
associated with the tags) and WalMart can pay immediately, or at least
within a day or two. The fast payment is the 'juice' used to entice
the vendors to spend the money to install the equipment on their end.

Of course, it doesn't work as well in practice as it does
theoretically. If you remember your basic physics an EM wave (such as
radio) is basically a point source that transmits in all directions so
when the tags are 'activated' they're transmitting in all directions
and can be picked up by other receivers in the immediate area other
than the one receiver you drove the pallet jack under (think of how
you see warehouses built with any number of dock doors all in a row
with just enough room for the long haul to back in to each door). You
can manage this at the TV warehouse which is usually much, much
smaller than a distribution center for a large retailer like WalMart,
but WalMart has had some problems (as have other large retailers). It
usually involves multiple reads, defective tags, etc.

You may have read some of the stories in the press with the government
and credit card companies experimenting with putting these tags on
things like passports, driver licenses and credit cards. It's
something that people have to stop at all costs or it will be a 'brave
new world' unlike anything the smirk has given us to date.

whoah-that was sortof interesting (to my geeky business side) and
thorough-thanks Jack! We still haven't even switched over to handheld
scanning in our warehouse yet, but we can get away with it somewhat-
our main branch could never do without with the volume they handle.
The name of the game that drives all of this, besides labor cost is of
course the cost of money. The faster you can help a customer approve
an invoice and then pay it, the more you have your cash available to
do fun things like pay your IT and accounting people. :)

agreed on the potential for Orwellian nightmares in this technology-
whenever I hear about that stuff, I assume it's already in use in ways
we don't want to know...

susan
.

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