RFID joins wireless lineup at UPS

Wireless technologies have been a critical part of the way UPS does business since the $33 billion company started using scanners to track packages in 1985. Now UPS is looking into the latest wireless technologies to infiltrate the world of logistics: radio frequency identification.

The company is looking to adopt RFID first in its supply-chain operations, where multiple pilot projects are underway, says David Barnes, vice president of IS at UPS in Atlanta.

UPS offers supply-chain services including distribution, freight forwarding and customs brokerage to its customers - some of which are under the gun to begin tagging cases and pallets with RFID labels to comply with mandates from Wal-Mart, Target, Albertsons, Best Buy and other retailers.

UPS has started testing pilot applications of RFID technology in select supply-chain settings. In one pilot, UPS is putting RFID tags on its trucks. Weather-resistant readers monitor when the vehicles arrive at and depart from UPS facilities - and take the burden off drivers to sign in and out, Barnes says.

In another pilot, UPS is tagging reusable containers used to carry packages through the company's automated shipping facilities. The RFID labels replace bar codes, which lack durability, he says.

RFID technology has been around for decades, but its application in supply-chain scenarios is immature. Retailer mandates are accelerating adoption, but there are still kinks.

One of those kinks is performance. In a distribution center scenario, readers need to scan RFID tags as items move along conveyer belts - often at a fast clip. UPS' Louisville, Ky., facility handles 300,000 packages per hour, for example.

Part of the difficulty is package positioning - a key component of UPS' automated sorting processes. The company's current bar-code-based systems use tunnel-like scanners to read label information. The bar-code scanners require line of sight to read a label and can only read one box at a time.

That's less efficient than RFID-based systems, which read multiple packages simultaneously and don't require line of sight. But the bar-code-based systems know more about the order of packages moving along a belt. The information they collect about package sequence is used to route packages to the appropriate loading spots.

RFID today doesn't know package sequences, Barnes says. "That's an issue that has to be worked through."