It is well known that the use of RFID technology leads to cost reductions in commercial enterprises. It is demonstrable that RFID stands for almost error-free data exchange and the optimization of warehouse management, inventories, goods availability, traceability, inventory control and much more in almost all areas of trade and industry. And it is undisputed that one of the great advantages of this technology is that it allows all processes to run in real time, thus enabling them to be controlled at any time.
syspro identified the immense potential of RFID as an all-rounder back in the early 2000s, developed systems for it, integrated them into many customer projects and has since made a name for itself as an RFID specialist: our solutions range from mobile asset management and predictive maintenance to complete no-line commerce concepts for retail.
So we are not really surprised by the news that the Japanese economy wants to increasingly equip the retail trade with RFID labels. What is surprising, however, is the dimension of the project: by 2025, around 100 billion products are to be labeled annually, which represents an enormous challenge and effort for producers and retailers.
The project was initiated by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) together with five of the largest Japanese operators of convenience store chains such as Seven-Eleven Japan Co., FamilyMart Co., Ltd., Lawson, Inc., Ministop Co., Ltd. and JR East Retail Net Co., Ltd. These convenience stores, known in Japan as "konbinis," are densely networked 24/7 supermarkets that offer not only articles for daily use but also various services, e.g., for postal, transport and banking services. In Japan, they represent one of the country's most important economic factors: in 2015, the industry had sales of around ten billion yen.
The background to the project is an effort to solve serious problems in the Japanese retail sector caused on the one hand by a shortage of labor due to declining birth rates and the rise in labor costs, and on the other hand by losses in the supply chain or high return rates.
It is expected that the use of electronic tags will enable item-by-item monitoring for each product, and their integration with respective business software will have a variety of positive impacts on retailers, such as speeding up cash register operations, product inspections, preventing shoplifting through EAS gates, and reducing food loss through more efficient expiration date management. Companies should begin implementing electronic tags in 2018 by attaching them to products in their convenience stores to achieve individual item monitoring.
Furthermore, as part of the cooperation between the government, industry and technology carriers, it is planned to not only limit the use of RFID tags to the convenience sector, but also to use them in a variety of other business models, and to implement increasingly sophisticated distribution systems with efficient RFID management. For example, METI recently announced an initiative to introduce product tracking to drugstores across the country.
More info at: http://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2017/0418_003.html
