U.K. store expands RFID trial

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February 23, 2005 (IDG News Service) -- U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer PLC (M&S) will extend its ongoing trial of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for the management of its clothing stock from nine of its stores to 53 in the second quarter of next year.
"The feedback so far from our staff has been very positive in that the RFID tags have clearly improved our stock-taking process. What takes up to eight hours a week to do manually can be done with RFID tags in about an hour," M&S spokeswoman Olivia Ross said today. "Plus the staff have said that they find the technology easy to use -- simply waving a scanner over a rack of clothes."
RFID systems store, receive and transmit data using antennas on tags that respond to radio frequency queries. Tags can be read when a remote scanner is passed over them. M&S began a trial of the technology itself in 2003 and then moved on to try RFID at the item level in April 2004. The current trial is only for men's clothing, but it will be expanded to include women's undergarments in 2006, Ross said.
"We are looking to test RFID with size-complex items, and for bras alone, there could be over 40 sizes," Ross said. The extended trial is expected to run through the third quarter of 2006, after which the company plans to continue with additional tests. Ross said there are no plans for what items future trials would include or timelines for when RFID would move from the test stage to being used on a regular basis in M&S stores.
BT Group PLC will be the main contractor on the second phase of the trial, providing M&S with IT services such as deployment assistance and maintenance of the RFID readers. BT is also assisting with the implementation of RFID in M&S's food supply chain. M&S has contracted with Intellident Ltd. for the scanner technology, while the microchips are from EM Microelectronic-Marin SA.
M&S is quick to point out that the only purpose for using RFID is to improve its stock-taking process. The RFID tags are not scanned at the checkout, nor is any link made between the garment information held by the tag and the customer's details, such as credit card information, Ross said.
"We don't match personal details to the garment, and we will never be doing that," Ross said. "We are open about the trials, and the customer feedback we've been getting has been positive. The customers we've polled in the stores using RFID have said they noticed an improvement in stock availability, which they like."
In the current trial, the RFID chips are placed

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