Inventory tracking in warehouses

A short introduction to how RFID is used in warehouses to track materials, assets and inventory

Keeping track of materials and inventory is essential both for production planning as well as order fulfillment. Using RFID offers a hundred-fold speed compared to bar codes, not to mention the potential to automate the actual identification process. Implementing RFID on finished-product or production batch level ensures visibility and data accuracy. Turck Vilant Systems offers an RFID toolkit that generates a unique identity to a product or batch at the moment it is manufactured.  The product or batch is from that point on tracked each time it passes an RFID read point, for example on a conveyor belt, onboard a forklift truck and when entering a specific warehouse. This speeds up the picking, finding, loading and tracking of the products. The system tracks all warehouse movements, helps fulfill legal obligations related to traceability, ensures shipment accuracy and removes manual errors through automation.

When RFID read points are implemented to correct areas and correct locations within production and logistics’ facilities, the need for manual counting diminishes. As all key processes are covered with RFID the stock levels are kept up-to-date with automation.

How to implement RFID enabled inventory tracking in a production warehouse?

1. Implementing a unique identifier to the product or batch (on item, pallet or other RTI level)
2. Automatically registering the stock location for individual products or batches as they are moved to warehouse and registering any warehouse moves
3. Forklifts equipped with RFID can be used to pick items in a customer order for shipment to ensure picking accuracy
4. Using RFID gates at dock doors or RFID enabled forklift trucks during the loading of shipments ensures delivery accuracy