Smart Labelling?
The supply chain for garments has to be viewed as one of the most complex supply chains in existence. Variety, seasonality, sizes, colours, different handling systems, boxed, hanging, etc. The advent of bar coding and bar code readers together with modern inventory management systems and modern garment materials handling techniques appeared to have provided all the efficiencies that could be derived from this supply chain. Up until a few months ago, that statement was very true. RFID "Tags" have been in existence for a number of years however, their size and cost have limited their application to the garment industry. Until now. A new generation of RFID tags has been developed; opening a plethora of applications, limited only by the lateral thought capability of the system engineers. Smart Labels as they are generically known, have addressed the size and cost issues. The tags have been designed from the outset to be inexpensive, re-usable (up to 100,000 re-writes per label), and in a virtually flat, label format.
March 6, 2000