Justin Patton, Director of Auburn University's RFID lab, sat down with host Mike Graan and discussed the evolution and future of RFID technology in retail and other industries. He emphasized the importance of proper item setup, technology readiness, and execution for accurate inventory management.
Patton highlighted the challenges in achieving serialized inventory and the need for multi-sensor systems. He mentioned initiatives like the chip and integration pilot and the executive committee involving Walmart, Delta Airlines, UPS, and McDonald's to drive technology adoption and knowledge sharing across verticals. Patton also stressed the importance of open standards and the need for mature technology solutions to improve supply chain visibility and efficiency.
Presented by AllAccessRetail.com, welcome to
Video Playing:Conversations on Retail. Join Mike Graen as he sits down with
Video Playing:Justin Patton, Director of Auburn University's RFID lab, to
Video Playing:discuss what is new in RFID for retail this year and beyond.
Video Playing:Let's get started.
Mike Graen:Hey. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening,
Mike Graen:everybody. Mike Graen here with another podcast with Justin
Mike Graen:Patton from the Auburn RFID lab. Just has been working on the lab
Mike Graen:and RFID back when he was a student at the University of
Mike Graen:Arkansas, and I guess Justin started the lab in 2005 was
Mike Graen:there for several years. Now, you're it got moved to the
Mike Graen:Auburn facility, which, ironically enough, Auburn and
Mike Graen:Arkansas just played football, and that didn't turn out so well
Mike Graen:from Auburn. But hey, we're glad we finally got a win, because we
Mike Graen:never beat Auburn at anything. So thank you very much for being
Mike Graen:here. We really do appreciate it. We're going to talk about
Mike Graen:everything RFID and what are the new thick capabilities in 2024
Mike Graen:So Justin, welcome to the podcast.
Video Playing:Thank you, Mike. Thank you for having me.
Mike Graen:All right, dude. Well, we've done lots of these,
Mike Graen:so you know, you know the drill. Sent you the questions ahead of
Mike Graen:time. I'm just kind of looking for, okay, we did this last
Mike Graen:year. What's new? What's hot? Anything you can share. I'm just
Mike Graen:trying to me there's, there's two things that, in my opinion,
Mike Graen:are starting to pick up. One is food, not QSR, but I mean
Mike Graen:really, RFID and food. The other one is people are starting to
Mike Graen:finally get outside of the store and start to look at things up
Mike Graen:the supply chain. Those are the two big walls for me that, gosh,
Mike Graen:it's taken a long time, but we're starting to make some
Mike Graen:progress. But anything you want to be sharing about, hey, here
Mike Graen:are the trends of the industry, and the way that Auburn can help
Mike Graen:the industry with that, that would be super because I think
Mike Graen:this helps people understand exactly what Auburn does.
Video Playing:Sure, you know one of the things we haven't
Video Playing:talked about before, and we really try to, there's three
Video Playing:fundamental things that we're trying to do with RFID, with
Video Playing:barcodes, with human counts, any any system, I don't care what it
Video Playing:is, any technology, when we're trying to manage inventory, you
Video Playing:have a certain amount of physical stuff that is in a
Video Playing:space. It's reality, okay? And then you have some type of
Video Playing:system of record, whether it's a computer or clipboard or
Video Playing:whatever you may have. So all these systems all this time are
Video Playing:constantly trying to reconcile, like, what do we have in our
Video Playing:system versus what is physically there. So in any of those
Video Playing:systems we have to have, we have to establish three things beyond
Video Playing:a shadow of a doubt, to know that whatever we have counted is
Video Playing:what is actually there, so that we can upgrade it to our our
Video Playing:system. One thing that we have to know is that we have to have
Video Playing:the items set up properly. Okay? So if it's a barcode, then the
Video Playing:item has to be barcoded and registered so that we can
Video Playing:recognize it as a SKU if it's an RFID tag, it has to have the
Video Playing:right RFID tag on the product. And it has to be encoded
Video Playing:properly. It's serialized so that we can recognize it. If
Video Playing:it's some type of an active tag, it has to have their thing on
Video Playing:there. Even if it's just a hand count, it has to have a label on
Video Playing:there, like it's jeans, so that the person who's looking at it
Video Playing:can say, Oh, this is the size and color and style of jeez, to
Video Playing:mark it down the list. So, so one thing we have to know is
Video Playing:that the item is set up properly. The second thing that
Video Playing:we have to know is whatever technology that we're using is
Video Playing:fundamentally capable of doing what we ask it to do. So if it's
Video Playing:a barcode scanner, then it is the correct kind of barcode
Video Playing:scanner, laser or whatever, so that we can actually scan that
Video Playing:thing. If it's an RFID scanner, then we have to know that we
Video Playing:have got the right tags in the in the readers, so that we can
Video Playing:scan those things when we do them, or the right type of
Video Playing:overhead, or the right type of robot. Doesn't matter what it
Video Playing:is, it's a physics, right? So whatever that system is, it has
Video Playing:to be capable if it's a human that's out there counting it. I
Video Playing:mean, if you need glasses, like me, you better have your glasses
Video Playing:on, because you don't have the capability to capture that
Video Playing:properly. So making sure the items set up properly, making
Video Playing:sure that we have the physics, the physical capability to
Video Playing:capture those things. And the third thing that we have to
Video Playing:prove is execution, so that we're executing fully. So again,
Video Playing:going back to those counting systems. Did they actually count
Video Playing:everything? Did they go through the whole area, if it's an RFID
Video Playing:count, did they actually walk the whole space? Or if it's an
Video Playing:overhead or a robot that doesn't require human intervention, was
Video Playing:that thing active in the inventory was moved through
Video Playing:there, or did the robot go around, or whatever? So if you
Video Playing:can prove fully and verify that the items are set up properly.
Video Playing:Really that you have the right tech solution in place that's
Video Playing:capable of counting those things, and that you have
Video Playing:executed fully on everything you need to execute to make sure
Video Playing:that that happens. Once those three things are established,
Video Playing:then you know that you have a good inventory counting, good
Video Playing:inventory system. So from there, that's where everything drives.
Video Playing:So from the lab, we have whole programs set up on the physics
Video Playing:side of that's the art program. We have a whole program set up
Video Playing:on the supplier compliance side of it. That's the Alec program.
Video Playing:And then the execution piece is a lot of the data and the audits
Video Playing:and stuff and back and forth and everything too. So no matter
Video Playing:what the industry is and what it is, and I was a long way to
Video Playing:answer your question, we've been trying to firmly establish and
Video Playing:find ways to preach that message. Of these are the things
Video Playing:that you have to keep your eye on the ball if you want to make
Video Playing:sure that your system works. And the nice thing is, in all these
Video Playing:systems, you can independently monitor those, and there's ways
Video Playing:to independently monitor those. So that's how we build
Video Playing:confidence and consistency and counts and make sure that
Video Playing:everything's is the way it's supposed to be.
Mike Graen:That's great perspective, and that's really
Mike Graen:helpful. The challenge becomes, if you're a pure play retailer,
Mike Graen:you could probably leverage RFID to do that. If you're a great,
Mike Graen:big mass merchandiser, you're going to have RFID, you're going
Mike Graen:to have scanning, you're going to have computer vision, you're
Mike Graen:going to have all these other stuff. How in the world to put
Mike Graen:all that together? That, to me, is the trick of that, because
Mike Graen:every single item will have to have some signal that says,
Mike Graen:Here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. They could be different
Mike Graen:across the big retailer, like a Walmart or a Target or something
Mike Graen:like that. How do you combine all that stuff together? That,
Mike Graen:to me, is the hard part. This
Video Playing:is, this is a key point, I think, with these multi
Video Playing:sensor systems, is we do not talk enough, and we still have
Video Playing:not crossed that hump into true serialized inventory. So like we
Video Playing:are operating in a world where we are all wandering around in a
Video Playing:fog of our uncertainty when it comes to inventory, and I'm not
Video Playing:talking about warehouses or restaurants or retail stores.
Video Playing:I'm just talking about life. I mean, if you look around your
Video Playing:office or look around your house, and I I'm fond of saying
Video Playing:this to people like you, ask somebody, how many pair of shoes
Video Playing:do you own? Nine people out 10 can't answer. One lady did
Video Playing:answer very directly. She had a very detailed inventory of
Video Playing:everything she owned was very impressive, but, but most
Video Playing:people, they don't know. They don't know how many shoes they
Video Playing:have. You know how many plates you have. You know how many
Video Playing:tools you have in your garage. If anybody's ever lived through
Video Playing:any kind of a catastrophic event like a flood or a fire, you know
Video Playing:how hard it is to deal with the insurance company, because most
Video Playing:people just don't know what we have. How many times if y'all
Video Playing:bought stuff because that you already have at home, because
Video Playing:you forgot you got it, whether it's a tool or a socket or
Video Playing:something else too. And, and we live in a world of of
Video Playing:uncertainty when it comes to the things that are around us, and
Video Playing:we're used to it. And, you know, we carry that into all the
Video Playing:aspects of our lives, to whether it's a work or whatever it may
Video Playing:be and and the reality is, I don't know. It doesn't not
Video Playing:matter what your job is. Even if your job is working from a
Video Playing:laptop, from home, you have an inventory like you have at least
Video Playing:a laptop or a computer, or a pencil or pen or something like
Video Playing:that too. So we are not to the point yet to where we are
Video Playing:applying a specific identity to all of those items. Once we do,
Video Playing:it does not matter what type of sensor you apply to it does not
Video Playing:matter if you use a computer vision, it does not matter if
Video Playing:you're using RFID, barcode, nothing, serial number, as long
Video Playing:as it's able to reconcile back to one specific item, then we're
Video Playing:dealing in a world of specificity. And then it's not
Video Playing:just a matter of groups of things appear and disappear.
Video Playing:It's a matter of individual items that we're tracking
Video Playing:through and and really, at its fundamental core, most of what
Video Playing:we're doing here, Mike, is it's not technology, it's accounting,
Video Playing:right? So it's changing accounting standards and
Video Playing:practices, which a lot of people are very familiar with, if
Video Playing:they've ever tried to do annualized inventory audits for
Video Playing:their financial reporting or anything like that too. But it's
Video Playing:just a different way of of counting things, more so than a
Video Playing:different all the technologies that you see on the surface.
Mike Graen:Yeah, we, we have not posted it yet, but we had a
Mike Graen:really good conversation with Joe Cole, Vice President of
Mike Graen:asset protection with Macy's and Randy Dunn from Zebra, who's
Mike Graen:been literally looking at asset protection and from sensor Matic
Mike Graen:and a zebra perspective for a long time. One of the things
Mike Graen:that we talked about is combining technologies together
Mike Graen:for a single item, and the use case was using RFID for asset
Mike Graen:protection. Literally, you can measure what went through the
Mike Graen:register versus what left the store. The problem is that most
Mike Graen:people are saying, Here's what left the register at a G 10
Mike Graen:level, so at UPC level, if you will, what left the store is at
Mike Graen:a serialized level. So five. Got sold. 10 left the store. Five of
Mike Graen:them probably got taken for whatever reason. But you can't
Mike Graen:tell me which five, right? And so we started talking about,
Mike Graen:well, I know you and I've talked about, potentially, every single
Mike Graen:item maybe have a different signal, one being RFID and one
Mike Graen:being a GS, one, 2d, barcode. The key is, they've got to have
Mike Graen:the same serial number. We're going to have a chaos, right?
Mike Graen:Complete chaos. But do you see more of that happening where we
Mike Graen:literally have, you know, redundant signals for a single
Mike Graen:item that help capture it at different points in the supply chain?
Video Playing:Yeah, we're getting there. And I think you
Video Playing:see people coming in from different angles that don't even
Video Playing:realize. So, you know, GS one talks about sunrise, which is
Video Playing:their concept of moving us over to they've kind of changed the
Video Playing:wording on a little bit, but some type of a 2d data matrix or
Video Playing:identifier, moving away from a direct 1d bar code, I kind of
Video Playing:like to strengthen the messaging to like, we're looking for a
Video Playing:serialized inventory future. So in the world you're describing,
Video Playing:Puma was the first company, I think, to fully integrate their
Video Playing:2d barcode with their RFID tag. Now, Nike and under armor and
Video Playing:others in the past have done a good job of linking the 2d bar
Video Playing:codes, or the QR codes, or the anti counterfeiting identifiers,
Video Playing:with the SG 10 on the RFID tag and the UPC. My understanding is
Video Playing:that Puma is the first one that has actually has the same SG 10
Video Playing:on the 2d bar code that's on that particular product and that
Video Playing:that is fully linked on the back end, so that no matter which way
Video Playing:you pull those, you're going to pull the same number back off of
Video Playing:that item. And then we've got other people are going on that
Video Playing:same path. So, you know, two drivers for sunrise, PNG was
Video Playing:been a big driver of that. You know, a lot of png products you
Video Playing:picked up and, you know, and love so well, Mike, you'll start
Video Playing:seeing QR codes on the back of those. Coca Cola is driving some
Video Playing:of that too, Pepsi. Pepsi, for sure, Pepsi, and they're not
Video Playing:serialized yet, right? We're heading down that road of we all
Video Playing:see where this is going quickly. So we don't matter how we get
Video Playing:there, whatever puts that identity on there first at a per
Video Playing:unit level is fine, as long as all those sensors are using it
Video Playing:appropriately and consistently and and it really makes it very
Video Playing:easy to see the future when it comes to technology a lot of
Video Playing:ways, because you deal with this too. And I see this every day. I
Video Playing:got people asking me about 57 new technologies and, and you
Video Playing:know, a lot of them are data services. The first question you
Video Playing:can ask yourself, the easy one, and what's going to stick and
Video Playing:what's not, is it a proprietary numbering system? It's out. It's
Video Playing:not gonna happen. So if it's if it's on open standards, great,
Video Playing:even if it's in a vertical org or something like that, in the
Video Playing:long term, you're just making life hard on yourself. So as
Video Playing:long as you're operating on consistent, open industry
Video Playing:standards, because you're going to be stacking those sensors
Video Playing:together, the single sensor, you know, system is a thing of the
Video Playing:past. And the second thing that people, we ask people when
Video Playing:they're evaluating a new technology, if they tell you
Video Playing:that they're replacing or competing with another
Video Playing:technology, again, they missed a point. It's out, I don't know
Video Playing:how many times we've gone to like a POS system or something
Video Playing:like that, and we say, Oh, we're doing this. They say, God, we
Video Playing:don't need that. We already have that with some RFID. We already
Video Playing:have that with CV. I said, if you think that you are going to
Video Playing:do this with one sensor, then you missed the point. Whole
Video Playing:point is to have multiple sensor confirmation on a serialized
Video Playing:unit level identity. We start stacking that confidence layer
Video Playing:on there, and then that's the true, flexible future I guess.
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Mike Graen:So Auburn University, specifically the
Mike Graen:RFID lab, led an initiative in 2018 which I was absolutely
Mike Graen:thrilled to be part of called chip and integration pilot, and
Mike Graen:it was a nice way of saying as we've really leveraged RFID and
Mike Graen:serialized data at the store level to know what we have and
Mike Graen:where is located. For the most part, we're almost going back to
Mike Graen:2005 when we started RFID at Walmart, which is tracking
Mike Graen:things throughout the supply chain, and the business drivers
Mike Graen:were basically claims, elimination, product
Mike Graen:authentication and shrink. Those numbers were out there, and they
Mike Graen:were huge, and we were looking at EPCIS and blockchain and all
Mike Graen:that kind of stuff. We fast forward to 20. 24 I think both
Mike Graen:of us would agree we haven't made as much progress as we
Mike Graen:would like to, but it feels like the industry is very primed to
Mike Graen:be starting to take advantage of some of this due capability.
Mike Graen:Where do you think this is really, really because it's an
Mike Graen:incredible concept, but it's also extremely difficult to do.
Video Playing:Yeah, I haven't. I've thought about this a lot
Video Playing:like the tags are there on a lot a large segment of the supply
Video Playing:chain. There's a lot of stuff that's been tagged for a very,
Video Playing:very long time. And, you know, we have opportunities to have
Video Playing:been leveraging those within DC and supply chain operations that
Video Playing:are often people just don't avail themselves of but I also
Video Playing:know that, like, I don't mean to single anybody out in
Video Playing:particular, but if you go to a lot of DCs, the way that we run
Video Playing:DCS is not modern a lot. I mean, you'll see a lot of barcode
Video Playing:scanners, and you hear about ws systems and things like that
Video Playing:too. But, uh, we don't tend to mess with DCS and then covid,
Video Playing:even though it uncovered a lot of, you know, holes in supply
Video Playing:chain, I think what it really did is make a lot of people
Video Playing:turtle down and say, Hey, let's just get a process we know and
Video Playing:love and stick with it, and then, you know, just force our
Video Playing:way through when it comes to the labor component of that. So I
Video Playing:think we're starting to see some forward thinking suppliers that
Video Playing:are really kind of getting a handle on that polo and Ralph
Video Playing:Lauren, you know, jockey, and some of the others too. Haynes,
Video Playing:like a lot of folks on the apparel side, they're they're
Video Playing:pushing volume that are really interested in it, that are
Video Playing:starting to develop those solutions. But I also think
Video Playing:that, uh, we're suffering from a lack of mature technic
Video Playing:technology solutions in the supply chain, especially in the
Video Playing:RFID world, and even in the CV world too. I think it's, it's
Video Playing:the wheel, right? Like you said, we started in oh five with all
Video Playing:this case and pallet level stuff, and a lot of that went
Video Playing:away, and now we're coming back to it. But the tech is been so
Video Playing:store focused. I mean, if you want to do RFID in a retail
Video Playing:store right now. You go buy yourself a handheld, and you
Video Playing:start cycle counting. You can do that today. If you look at a DC,
Video Playing:you're going to get nine different answers to how should
Video Playing:I light up this DC? And they're not, I feel sometimes direct
Video Playing:value driven. They're more focused on selling a lot of
Video Playing:hardware. So we don't have enough good success stories out
Video Playing:there where people have showed that you can really lock down
Video Playing:and trust this tech to be able to transition it from partner to
Video Playing:partner. And I think it's just kind of a lack of imagination on
Video Playing:some of the solution providers, and, you know, hardware provider
Video Playing:space, and then also a lack of imagination, I think, on the
Video Playing:part of some of the product manufacturers there, I see
Video Playing:imagination, just knowledge of what you can do with having unit
Video Playing:level visibility and trust that this is going to be something
Video Playing:besides something that your retail customer asked you to do
Video Playing:as a cost of business. How do they embrace it? Start using it
Video Playing:to enhance their their operational value?
Mike Graen:Yeah, well, the demo you had built at the lab, and
Mike Graen:I'm not sure if it's still up and running or not, but the chip
Mike Graen:demo that you had in the lab opened a lot of people's eyes
Mike Graen:about what the opportunity was. Man, if I transmit serialized
Mike Graen:data. And I shipped 20 pairs of jeans that I you ordered, and I
Mike Graen:ship them all. And you come back and go, I only got 10. I'm going
Mike Graen:to claim them. You go, nope. Here's the 20 I sent you. Here's
Mike Graen:the license plates, the serial numbers of each one of them. I'm
Mike Graen:not paying you $1 because I could prove when I put them on
Mike Graen:the truck, they were there. That seems like a logical place for
Mike Graen:most retailers to start from a receiving that Pro, that
Mike Graen:product, directly from the supplier, for two reasons.
Mike Graen:Number one, the called the whole claims measurement. Number two,
Mike Graen:if you're going to find some product that's incorrectly RFID
Mike Graen:encoded, that's where you want to catch it. You don't want to
Mike Graen:go all the way through the DCS to 100 stores and go, Oh crap.
Mike Graen:We got some stuff that's incorrectly tagged. I can't
Mike Graen:figure out why, at the point of receiving at a distribution
Mike Graen:center, why retailers aren't investing heavily in trying to,
Mike Graen:you know, basically, when you when it transfers from the
Mike Graen:supplier to them, they wouldn't want to capture that information
Mike Graen:and push it through the supply chain. Is it just, is it the
Mike Graen:technical issue that you said, or is it just no business
Mike Graen:drivers or, you know, because it was, again, we did this in 2008
Mike Graen:sorry, real long, 18,018 right? And now we're at 2024 I just
Mike Graen:haven't seen the industry adopt what you guys had laid out,
Mike Graen:which I think made all the sense in the world.
Video Playing:With a lot of just talking about RFID in
Video Playing:particular here, there's a time component to these systems
Video Playing:that's discounted a lot of times. So if you cycle count a
Video Playing:warehouse, or you cycle kind of store, you cycle, count it once
Video Playing:a week, twice a week, you know, once every two weeks, whatever
Video Playing:it may be. But there's a repetition factor to this. So
Video Playing:RFID is not a camera flash. Where we flash the room, and
Video Playing:then here's everything in there. It's more of, you know, it's a
Video Playing:strobe. So we're constantly, like, lighting that space up and
Video Playing:counting stuff in there. It's it's not a shout, it's a drum
Video Playing:beat, right? So, like when you cycle count over time, the value
Video Playing:of the cycle counts was, instead of doing an inventory count once
Video Playing:a year or twice a year, we're doing an inventory count once a
Video Playing:week, once every two weeks, so we get a lot of different shots
Video Playing:at these items, and I think that helps increase confidence,
Video Playing:because going back to those three things we talked about
Video Playing:with supplier execution, the store execution, and then also
Video Playing:the Technology Readiness, the more you repeat those, the
Video Playing:better you can build confidence in those. I think one of the
Video Playing:issues we've had at the DC is that we don't have mature
Video Playing:systems for receiving. Yet, even at the store, a lot of times we
Video Playing:treat it like you got one shot when it goes to that doctor, or
Video Playing:we gotta scan everything that's in there, and then once it's
Video Playing:past that doctor, then it's gone. So then you try to match
Video Playing:up a count there that happened in, you know, maybe one to two
Video Playing:seconds with all the stuff upstream, and we're putting too
Video Playing:much of a constraint or a choke on there. So I think what we're
Video Playing:seeing in, you know, especially the stores with fixed
Video Playing:infrastructure. I mean, you've seen this mic like it ain't
Video Playing:about just the readers at the receiving door. It's all the
Video Playing:readers throughout the space that are going to pick up those
Video Playing:items as they move throughout the store or throughout the
Video Playing:warehouse or throughout the restaurant. And then that's how
Video Playing:you kind of build out a mature, full picture of what's
Video Playing:happening, rather than trying to compress this down to a big,
Video Playing:giant wad of stuff and expect that to all scan at one
Video Playing:particular point in time. And I think it does require a little
Video Playing:bit more trust and maturity in all these systems to have that
Video Playing:full infrastructure out there to where you're ready to use it,
Video Playing:because not everybody's shipping boxes of towels where it's easy
Video Playing:to scan at a doctor. So I think that are, there has been a
Video Playing:little bit of, again, it's just, we're not it's just going to
Video Playing:take a while for for all of the technology to get out there and
Video Playing:get enough sensors in that space to where it really, really is
Video Playing:working.
Mike Graen:Yeah, and you just uncovered something that that
Mike Graen:we've really learned the hard way in the retail space, which
Mike Graen:is they used to call, what I would call things like choke
Mike Graen:points. That was that word that they use. Hey, it's a single
Mike Graen:kind of portal right here. Run it through here, and you'll
Mike Graen:count everything. Yeah, it's probably not going to happen,
Mike Graen:right? You're not going to catch it all. So the way I've seen it
Mike Graen:be successful is maybe it's a term that industry uses, which
Mike Graen:is control point, which is probably a single portal, plus
Mike Graen:another couple readers, plus another couple readers. You need
Mike Graen:to build up a enough readers and antenna that basically say, I've
Mike Graen:got a number of times to catch this and establish what I would
Mike Graen:consider to be some kind of a minimum viable read point, which
Mike Graen:is, I want to be able to read at least 98% or 97% of the things
Mike Graen:that are in the box, even if it's really tightly compressed.
Mike Graen:That doesn't mean just putting one reader over door, and call
Mike Graen:it a good because you may get 75% you're not going to get
Mike Graen:anywhere close to where you probably have to be to have
Mike Graen:accounting grade kind of accuracy. Would you agree with that?
Video Playing:The greatest disservice that I ever
Video Playing:personally did to this space, and I was guilty of it for
Video Playing:years, is that that doctor portal demo we had down at the
Video Playing:Arkansas lab, at the first lab, and the second one, and even ran
Video Playing:in years like we, I don't know how many years we spent like
Video Playing:staying up readers at a loading dock door and then showing
Video Playing:people pushing, you know, a pallet full of T shirts in
Video Playing:there, and saying, look, there's 200 T shirts in this palette.
Video Playing:And look, you can see them all on my screen. And it came from
Video Playing:the concept of, like, Hey, we're showing how quickly you can scan
Video Playing:these things. But we gave people, I think, the wrong
Video Playing:impression that, you know, the reality is, and everybody
Video Playing:listening, I'm happy to stand up on the mountain say this, if you
Video Playing:were using a loading dock door, the purpose of a loading dock
Video Playing:door with RFID is you need pallet level or case level
Video Playing:visibility? Yep, you are not going to see unit level
Video Playing:visibility at loading dock doors, especially for a large
Video Playing:load of stuff coming down through there. And somebody's
Video Playing:going to tell you, I'm wrong and that they've seen it before. I
Video Playing:ask go look at it then, because I've been doing this for 19
Video Playing:years and I haven't seen one. So I don't think the Detect kind of
Video Playing:works. It's not a drum beat that's a flashing time. So I
Video Playing:think that helping people understand that the value of
Video Playing:nested visibility, helping people understand like, when is
Video Playing:the appropriate time to scan these things, and helping make
Video Playing:sure that we have redundancy and operations, especially in these
Video Playing:scanning operations, as much as possible, is very helpful to do
Video Playing:that too. But I feel like we have kind of focused on what
Video Playing:happened is in oh five, when we were really focused on these
Video Playing:case level and pallet level dock door scans, we took some of
Video Playing:those same techniques over into the item level world when that
Video Playing:was the wrong lever to pull, when we started moving on on
Video Playing:item level RFID, and that became apparent, because think about
Video Playing:this way you it's not gonna take you long to learn that a
Video Playing:handheld is not an awesome solution for a loading doctor
Video Playing:or, I mean, it's not made for it, right? Um, it's great for
Video Playing:item level and on a shelf. Not great for loading doctor or same
Video Playing:thing for some of those, uh, doctors when it comes to, uh,
Video Playing:getting old stuff, too different tools are made for different
Video Playing:jobs, I guess, if you will.
Mike Graen:Now, in fairness, there's some there's some people
Mike Graen:out there doing it, but they have a different approach, which
Mike Graen:is they have a hierarchy. All these 30 items are in this box.
Mike Graen:All these boxes are on this palette. They know that in
Mike Graen:childhood, parent relationship. So if I read a palette, I can
Mike Graen:deduce what's all in the box, in the cases and in the items. So I
Mike Graen:don't want to say you can't do that, but there's a lot of
Mike Graen:forethought that has to go into I know what items are in which
Mike Graen:box, which boxes are and which palette, and be able to do that,
Mike Graen:because passing it through one single portal, you're not going
Mike Graen:to read every single item in that in no way.
Justin Patton:And that's a great point. So there's
Justin Patton:discovery and there's validation. Okay? So discovery
Justin Patton:means I don't know what all these unit level or serialized
Justin Patton:numbers are there, and I'm going to discover everything that's in
Justin Patton:that space, right? And that takes a little bit effort.
Justin Patton:Validation to your point, is like, Okay, I already have this
Justin Patton:case, and it has a 128, case code on. There can be a barcode,
Justin Patton:and then these EPCs or RFID numbers are assigned to that. I
Justin Patton:don't have to see all of them. I can just see one or two units
Justin Patton:preaching those boxes to assume that that box is there, and that
Justin Patton:will help. And I think that we, I can give a real, live example
Justin Patton:that airplanes. So when commercial aviation, before they
Justin Patton:take off on a on a flight, they go out there and they do a cycle
Justin Patton:count of the safety equipment in the cabin. Now they're not
Justin Patton:discovering all the RFID tags on all the lifejackets and the
Justin Patton:safety equipment in that cabin. They already know everything
Justin Patton:that's supposed to be there. So when they're scanning that,
Justin Patton:they're that scanning off a list and saying, Okay, there's 312
Justin Patton:pieces of safety equipment in here. I just scan through here,
Justin Patton:and it looks like I got, you know, 311 Oh, which one's
Justin Patton:missing? Oh, well, I'm supposed to have a life vest on row 12 s.
Justin Patton:It looks like I don't see one. Oh, let's go back to 12 F and
Justin Patton:see what happened. So that's not discovery, that's validation.
Justin Patton:And I think, to your point like there are some good solutions
Justin Patton:that can be based on, like validating or proving that
Justin Patton:something is where it was supposed to be, but that's more
Justin Patton:about making a state change in location, rather than taking a
Justin Patton:or creating a new inventory identity into a space, if you will.
Mike Graen:That's a huge way that distinguishing between
Mike Graen:discovery and validating is a huge unlock. They sound like the
Mike Graen:same words, but they are absolutely different. One is, I
Mike Graen:don't know what I got. Let me see it. The other one is, I
Mike Graen:expect these things, and which ones didn't I get? And I think
Mike Graen:you're exactly right. Well, you kind of love the segue. I mean,
Mike Graen:the the reality is, you've been involved with RFID at retail
Mike Graen:since literally 2005 since I've known you and been part of the
Mike Graen:lab, but you're now getting into a lot of different verticals. A
Mike Graen:matter of fact, you started an executive committee which
Mike Graen:includes air travel, quick service restaurants, package,
Mike Graen:you know, patch, I don't know what you call a package
Mike Graen:distribution, basically, UPS, FedEx, etc, and retail, what?
Mike Graen:What's the purpose of that? Why are you? Why are you getting all
Mike Graen:of those folks to to work together? Are there common
Mike Graen:business needs across them, as it's a set priorities, what
Mike Graen:exactly are you open to get out of that?
Justin Patton:It's a good question. So the executive
Justin Patton:committee, it consists of the prime movers and four verticals,
Justin Patton:like you said, and then also Dr Hargrave, who's kind of our
Justin Patton:academic lead, or chair of that committee. So, you know, in the
Justin Patton:retail world, we've got Walmart on the executive committee.
Justin Patton:That's Matt Alexander. He's been a driver for supplier compliance
Justin Patton:for a long time. And you know, there's a lot of retailers out
Justin Patton:there, but in terms of pushing volume, you know, Walmart was
Justin Patton:the first one, the case and pilot level stuff, and they kind
Justin Patton:of help trend out some of the directions in the future. And
Justin Patton:then in aviation, we have Delta Airlines. Delta's been a great
Justin Patton:partner of ours. And again, they're kind of the prime mover
Justin Patton:for innovation, especially in RFID and and their arena for
Justin Patton:aerospace and aviation, for packaging and logistics. We got
Justin Patton:ups. UPS has been in the news quite a bit about their plans
Justin Patton:for RFID, and they're kind of the most focal, I think, out
Justin Patton:there in that packaging logistics space. And they're
Justin Patton:pretty good represented for that part of the market. And then
Justin Patton:also for food and qsrs. We have McDonald's that's Sue Fang, I
Justin Patton:guess I should say Demetra Daniels. Is it Delta Airlines
Justin Patton:and then John Bell at UPS and Sue Fang McDonald's. So and
Justin Patton:McDonald's is kind of like of them as a restaurant. They're
Justin Patton:pretty big in terms of mover, especially when it plans for
Justin Patton:RFID world. So between those four, what we're trying to do
Justin Patton:is, in the past, we've treated these technologies, especially
Justin Patton:RFID, as one vertical versus one vertical versus one vertical.
Justin Patton:Mike, we're coming up on 20 years of my involvement in that
Justin Patton:space and c1, g2, RFID has been around as long as I've been in
Justin Patton:the. Industry, right? So how many versions of Bluetooth and
Justin Patton:Wi Fi and I mean, we can improve things in 20 years, surely,
Justin Patton:especially from a technology perspective. So there's better
Justin Patton:techniques that we have for source tagging, there's better
Justin Patton:techniques we have for scanning things. I think that there's
Justin Patton:some real fundamental changes that we can make to UHF
Justin Patton:technology itself to make it better. A lot of the stuff that
Justin Patton:we loaded into these tags and chips back in 2005 when this was
Justin Patton:a few million tag market are not really relevant in 2024 2025 now
Justin Patton:that we're looking at a 50 billion unit market, so I think
Justin Patton:that that group can help leverage a little bit more of
Justin Patton:collective interest to drive the things that we don't have a
Justin Patton:heavy focus on, especially attention to data and data
Justin Patton:transfer, and then also things like driving technology
Justin Patton:adoption. From a bigger perspective, we went to some of
Justin Patton:the companies that are doing a lot of the back end data
Justin Patton:systems, and at a very large data company. We went and asked
Justin Patton:them at one point about helping set up some more mature systems
Justin Patton:for transitioning serialized data. EPCIS is a great standard.
Justin Patton:Now we need to make sure that we have ways to actually, you know,
Justin Patton:send stuff around, whether it was like chip project or
Justin Patton:whatever. And this person kind of spent a long time explaining
Justin Patton:to me why he didn't think that we would see RFID at an item
Justin Patton:level on electronics and toys and home goods and a lot of
Justin Patton:things. I'm like, sorry, tag buddy. So like, I feel like that
Justin Patton:there's a lack of knowledge and education and maturity outside
Justin Patton:of our space. There's a real lack of knowledge outside of of
Justin Patton:the world of you know, UHF, RFID, and then even within it,
Justin Patton:there's not enough coordination to kind of go after some of the
Justin Patton:easier wins.
Mike Graen:But those four verticals that we just kind of
Mike Graen:laid out, they have some common interests as well. I mean, when
Mike Graen:you get right down to it, they want to know what they have and
Mike Graen:what they want to know where it is, right? I mean, that's that's
Mike Graen:true in all of those verticals. So are you able to leverage
Mike Graen:information the things you learned in one vertical, across
Mike Graen:those verticals, pretty effectively?
Video Playing:Oh, absolutely. I mean, we, every time we have one
Video Playing:of those meetings, there's so many things that one will learn
Video Playing:that is immediately applicable to another space that you just
Video Playing:wouldn't think about, you know, trying to think of a great
Video Playing:example off the top. But there's a lot more in common between a
Video Playing:baggage handling and an airline operation and a package handling
Video Playing:and, you know, a ground shipping operation, or especially air
Video Playing:shipping operation. And you might think like you know, if
Video Playing:you're putting boxes on on a shipment from an online retailer
Video Playing:to a person's house, that's not terribly dissimilar from someone
Video Playing:who's checking a bag on an airline from one destination
Video Playing:point to another. So these systems that are designed for
Video Playing:one may be valuable to another. Bag handling operations
Video Playing:underneath an airport. You should have been down on those
Video Playing:things. It's wild. It's like, you know, only thing I saw for
Video Playing:aircraft operations growing up was die hard too, when he's
Video Playing:running around into the airport and not like that. But like, you
Video Playing:know, there's a lot of automation stuff, which is
Video Playing:pretty similar to what you would see in the DC, in the retail
Video Playing:world, in the retail space, too, and and a lot of the hard
Video Playing:lessons we've learned about supplier compliance and getting
Video Playing:a lot of suppliers to tag things, I think are very
Video Playing:practical when you're moving into the food space, because
Video Playing:they also have a lot of suppliers that need to leverage
Video Playing:value out of this, and they don't want to have to learn the
Video Playing:same hard lessons about printers and application and
Video Playing:serialization things like that too. So beyond the real simple
Video Playing:like, just knowledge sharing pieces of like this is how we
Video Playing:can help you and help you and help you. I think we're really
Video Playing:trying to learn how to leverage the the weight of all of those
Video Playing:industries together to drive to drive it forward. I think what's
Video Playing:happened now is a lot of these industries are very reactive to
Video Playing:the technologies available in the space. What do you got out
Video Playing:there? How can I implement it? Whereas, you know, 1015, years
Video Playing:ago, they were very proactive. I think a lot of these industry
Video Playing:are going out there and saying, This doesn't exist, yes, but I
Video Playing:want it. That's how we got the first infrastructure systems and
Video Playing:things like that. So we're trying to recapture that spirit
Video Playing:of less plant the flag and move towards it, rather than just sit
Video Playing:back and to try to figure out how we're going to use what's
Video Playing:what's being.