South African Retailer Selects Nedap’s !D Cloud Software for RFID Deployment

Value retailer Ackermans signed a three-year contract with Nedap for the supply of !D Cloud, Nedap’s RFID software platform, to its 800 stores in Southern Africa.

Ackermans is the first retailer in Africa to roll out RFID on such a large scale. The primary objective of this endeavor is to increase in-store stock accuracy in order to optimize replenishment processes from warehouse to stores.

“We know that the on-shelf availability of our apparel items is crucial in our large-format stores. If a certain size is missing, we will lose that sale,” said Marius Jordaan, operations systems manager at Ackermans. “We understand that RFID is the ideal solution to raise stock accuracy and to guarantee that the full-size range is always available on the sales floor.”

During the proof-of-concept, weekly RFID cycle counts resulted in approximately 98% stock accuracy. This led to improved product availability and, ultimately, increased sales.

“We knew that selecting the correct platform partner would be critical to the success of our project, therefore after extensive market research, we selected Nedap as our long-term service provider,” said Helmuth Luttig, commercial director, Ackermans. “Key reasons for selecting Nedap is their ability to scale, their cost-effective software, their extensive roll-out experience, and their community-based feature development program.”

“What makes this RFID deployment unique is that, together with our local partner StegTech, we have successfully managed to build a business case for value retail. This project clearly shows the profound benefits associated with increased in-store stock accuracy,” added Mark Kasbergen, international business development manager at Nedap Retail.