RFID stock visibility from central warehouse to retail counter

Challenge

A large, continuously expanding product range — garments, handicrafts, packaged foods and assorted merchandise — moved from central warehouses to retail outlets with stock recorded manually at each hop. Physical verification meant closing an outlet for a day, stock on the system and stock on the shelf drifted apart between counts, and nobody could see what was available across outlets without ringing each one.

Solution

A phased RFID programme: tag selection matched to each product category — woven and heat-seal tags for garments, tamper-evident and on-pack tags for handicrafts and packaged goods — with a unique identity per item as well as SKU-level grouping. Centralised RFID inventory software gives real-time stock across warehouses and outlets, inward and outward movement history, automated counting and reconciliation, and MIS dashboards for management, with an integration layer for the existing ERP and outlet billing systems. Handheld readers for stock verification and receiving, fixed reader gateways at warehouse and outlet doors for movement capture, and antennas and infrastructure installed, configured and tested per site. Delivered as a pilot at selected locations first, with staff training, technical support and an architecture sized for more warehouses and outlets as the network grows.

Outcome

Stock verification that takes hours instead of days and no longer closes an outlet, item-level and SKU-level visibility across the network in one view, receiving and dispatch verified automatically at the door rather than on paper, and a pilot that proves the numbers before the rollout is funded.