Here is a very useful article about RFID and reusable packaging, written by Hanna Östman of NordicID. It emphasizes the importance of utilizing common standards and future-proofing to facilitate supply chain visibility, wider buy-in, greater efficiencies, and reduced costs.
Managing RTIs – Returnable Transport Items – with RFID
Real-world RTI pool tracking projects with RFID are popping up like mushrooms in the forest. This text explains the technology and lets the reader in on useful hints before initializing an RFID project.
RTI or returnable transport item, as it stands for, refers to all kinds of transportation packing assets that are used for carrying and transferring goods throughout the supply chain, such as containers, bins, pallets, racks, crates and carts. They are reusable and circulate the supply chain until their end of life. To share costs and risks, and assure a sufficient RTI pool, a group of companies often share a common pool of RTIs, which is managed by an RTI pool operator. In other cases the RTI pool operator might be the pool owner, who rents its RTIs to its customers, but the pool owner can just as well be a manufacturer, supplier, retailer etc.
RTI pool owners have been using RFID for many years, primarily in closed loop systems and mostly with high-value RTIs, but RFID is starting to become popular in open loop systems and low-value, high-volume RTIs as well. As long as the system is future-proof and follows common standards, the pool owner, but also the other members in the supply chain, will experience smooth operation and increased efficiency in the movement of assets, with a fast ROI. Reports on successful implementations and pilots in the real-world are galvanizing retailers and pool owners into action.
Read more at NordicID.
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