RedPrairie leads RFID project for Unilever

RedPrairie leads RFID project for Unilever

Waukesha, Wis. – RedPrairie Corporation announced Tuesday it is leading the RFID pilot for Unilever North America beginning this week. The pilot will enable Unilever to implement and test RFID technology in its supply chain to prepare for compliance with the mandates from Wal-Mart other top retailers and the U.S. Department of Defense to ship products using RFID at the pallet and case level next year.
Three Unilever locations have been chosen for the pilot, including a manufacturing site, a Home and Personal Care and a Best Foods. RedPrairie’s RFID Accelerator solution is designed to enable Unilever to meet the demands of the large retailers without replacing its existing infrastructure. The application will allow agents to collect and verify RFID tag information, retrieve related inventory data and pass the combined information to retailers in advanced shipping notices. This process will provide the pallet and case level RFID-based information that Wal-Mart, Target and others will require.
“Unilever has been researching and testing the value of RFID for our company over the past three years. We investigated several technology solutions for RFID compliance and ultimately concluded RedPrairie has the functionality and expertise required to ensure our project’s success. Our goal for this pilot is to meet rapidly approaching retailer compliance deadlines, while simultaneously understanding value from RFID within our own supply chain,” said Simon Ellis, Unilever’s supply chain futurist.
RedPrairie has managed Unilever HPC’s distribution network for more than eight years and has partnered with Unilever for RFID projects since co-founding the RFID Center of Excellence in March 2002 with Intermec Technologies, Georgia-Pacific, and CHEP International.
RedPrairie is a Waukesha-based company that specializes in supply chain technology, including RFID technology.