Dairy products manufacturer Daisy Brand has taken its RFID deployment to a new phase, says Kevin Brown, the company's director of information systems, and is now concentrating on using data analytics to better manage promotions and high-volume shopping times. Daisy is using those analytics to manage the release of a new cottage cheese product that first appeared in some Texas stores in November 2006, as well as its sour cream, by tracking how quickly the items reach the shelf, and how often they are replenished.
Daisy deployed its initial RFID system at its warehouse in Garland, Texas, in 2005. Now the company is deploying similar technology at its new manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Ariz., expected to open in the second half of this year.
While Daisy Brand's initial goals for RFID involved testing tag placement and hardware functionality at its Garland site, the company has now taken the next step--utilizing the data. "A lot of our activity has been around the use of information from Wal-Mart's Retail Link," Brown says, referring to the retailer's extranet service for sharing supply chain data with suppliers.
Source: RFID Journal, http://www.rfidjournal.com