Checkpoint's new RFID Tags portfolio for apparel retailers
24 Feb '12
5 min read
Checkpoint Systems Inc announced its expanded and new RFID encoding solutions and the expansion of its RFID tag portfolio for apparel brands and their retail partners, as well as closed-loop apparel retailers and department stores.
Checkpoint's growing RFID portfolio of hardware, software, tags, and service and support offerings provides further value for the increasing number of apparel retailers seeking to deploy RFID broadly throughout their operations to increase sales, reduce out-of-stocks, reduce working capital, as well as enhance loss prevention efforts and consumer experience.
“We developed these offerings specifically to meet the needs of retailers and vendors that are scaling their RFID initiatives,” said Per Levin, Checkpoint Systems' worldwide president, Merchandise Visibility and Apparel Labeling Solutions. “As apparel retailers increasingly adopt RFID-based solutions, they are looking for scalable, deployable, operational solution sets, and we're particularly proud to announce this world-class capability to enable their success.”
Checkpoint now offers suppliers and retailers three ways in which to uniquely encode tags:
•High-Speed Bulk Encoding: This solution enables the encoding at a distribution center (DC) of RFID tags applied onto multiple items in a single box at operational speed, significantly reducing the time needed to encode large quantities of merchandise. Upon reviewing the DC's existing operations, Checkpoint implements an RFID system that addresses the facility's unique needs. This solution ensures the fastest and most accurate encoding of Electronic Product Code (EPC) numbers without the need to open boxes and handle individual garments. It includes best-in-class hardware and software to ensure the highest levels of accuracy and encoding speed. High-speed bulk encoding is under implementation in multiple locations.
•Expanded Service Bureaus: Checkpoint now offers RFID service bureaus in Asia, Europe, Central America and North America for rapid encoding and printing. With this rapid turn-around approach, Checkpoint encodes unique EPC numbers, prints variable data on labels in the company's own print shops and ships the labels to suppliers' tagging locations world-wide.
•In-Plant Printing: In some cases, apparel brands and closed-loop retailers need to manage the tagging process from remote locations that may not have reliable Internet service, inhibiting their ability to obtain EPC numbers needed to print and encode RFID on demand. Checkpoint's new In-Plant services enable companies to locally manage the complete process, including number serialization and tag printing from these sites.
All of these new products and services work in conjunction with Checkpoint's existing Open EPC Number Management Solution, an easy-to-deploy, cloud-based software application that provides complete global EPC number management.
“Brand owners are looking forthe flexibility to decide when, where and how they manage their item-level tagging processes across their global supply chains,” said Daniel Bowman, senior product line manager, Impinj. “We're impressed with Checkpoint's leadership in bringing new solutions to brand owners and pleased that it has chosen Impinj's unique source tagging platform with STP encoding technology for high-performance bulk commissioning.”