TAGSYS Ensures Full RFID Compliance to Improve Brand Owners’ Supply Chain Agility

TAGSYS announced that its FiTS (Fashion Item Tracking System) offering ensures complete compliance with new RFID guidelines backed by some of the largest retailers in the U.S., including Lord & Taylor, Macy’s, PVH Corp (owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger), Jockey International and Maidenform.

The latest version of guidelines, published last week by independent standards administrator GS1 US, includes support for Serial Global Trade Item Number (SGTIN)-96, enabling simultaneous inventory counts and shortening lead time. This allows supplies to have products strategically located for effective demand response to reduce replenishment cycle times.

The support for the guidelines means any company supplying to the retailers involved in the initiative can rely on TAGSYS system to both boost their supply chain agility and be compliant with the requirements of their retail partners, regardless of the serialization technology used – IT-based or chip-based serialization.

“We are pleased to be in full alignment with what the major suppliers and retailers are agreeing on in terms of item-level identification and tracking guidelines, and we are committed to fulfilling their RFID mandate as it evolves. Based on its 15 years of experience in item-level tracking, TAGSYS is proud to offer the only end-to-end supply chain system for brand owners who want to ensure they are not only compliant with the GS1 standards, but also want to secure their investment through our support of ongoing technology convergence at the store level,” said Alain Fanet, TAGSYS CEO.

The TAGSYS system supports reliable and fast encoding techniques such as “Bulk Encoding” and ”Read-and-Verify,” both of which significantly improve the productivity and efficiency of the manufacturer at the point of manufacture- or the point of distribution.

“Our approach is to provide real-time visibility at each touch point in the supply chain. For example, with FiTS the manufacturer can combine UPC Item data and RFID data to code SKU’s at the distribution center (DC) level. Providing this type of insight and control at the point of distribution provides a Just In Time service to the retailer, and reduces wasted SKU’s, inventory, pre-printed materials, and most importantly, inventory dollars,” noted Monte R. Lucas, TAGSYS Americas’ vice president of sales.

FiTS is an end-to-end item-level visibility system developed specifically for the fashion and apparel supply chain. It is a fully integrated RFID-based solution for retailers and garment suppliers to provide enhanced supply chain visibility and item-level tracking and verification, from a product’s point of origin to the final retail destination.

Existing TAGSYS customers have realized an average 50% productivity improvement in the distribution center, 98% inventory accuracy, and a 20% reduction in processing costs per item, while improving sales by 7%.