RFID Discovery has implemented its conveyor belt portal solution at Brook Taverner, enabling the company to check up to 25,000 garments in less than 60 minutes.
The portal solution checks arrivals from overseas production sites using RFID tags fitted into garments during manufacture, giving real-time visibility of stock and removing the need for manual checks.
RFID technology uses tags attached to apparel items to track and identify items, without the need to visually scan each piece.
Brook Taverner’s senior operations manager Colin Seward commented: "RFID Discovery's conveyor portal has revolutionised our goods-in verification process and substantially increased the accuracy of our warehouse inventory.
"It used to take us three hours to carry out manual spot checks on a typical shipment of up to 25,000 garments, inherently introducing potential errors. Now we can efficiently validate whether all expected items are present in less than one hour, savings us both time and money."
GlobalData’s Patent Analytics shows the number of mentions of RFID in apparel company filings reached its peak four years ago.
In 2020, RFID was mentioned 306 times in apparel company filings, but by 2023 this fell to just 106 mentions. In 2024 so far, the topic has been mentioned just 43 times.
In February 2024, Matthew Cyr, the CEO of connected fitting room platform Crave Retail, told Just Style how the fashion retail sector is only just touching the surface of what AI and RFID can achieve.
RFID technology has previously been used by ecommerce giant Amazon, enabling it to create a seamless checkout-free shopping experience at its Just Walk Out stores.
