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Wal-Mart RFID pilot: Detail about timings, deadlines and success

Gus Whitcomb, a spokesman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer, declined to identify which of Wal-Mart’s 18 pharmaceutical suppliers will make the RFID deadline or say how many won’t do so. But he said Wal-Mart expects noncompliant suppliers to meet its directive by the end of June.

Whitcomb declined to provide further details, citing a commitment to security that was made with the pharmaceutical suppliers.

The March 31 date marks the first in a series of deadlines facing Wal-Mart’s suppliers. Wal-Mart has told its top 100 suppliers that it expects them to comply with a January 2005 deadline to affix RFID tags to pallets and cases they ship to its three distribution centers in Texas. The remainder of the suppliers are expected to comply by the start of 2006.

Next month, eight of the top 100 suppliers will begin a test involving selected products shipped to one of Wal-Mart’s distribution centers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Whitcomb said. The test will ultimately expand to Wal-Mart’s other two distribution centers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, but Whitcomb said the timing will depend on how the first test goes.
Source: Some pharmaceutical suppliers won’t meet Wal-Mart RFID deadline - Computerworld