"Intelligent" clothes store makes full use of RFID

November 12 2008

"Intelligent" clothes store makes full use of RFID

Finnish apparel company NP Collection has opened one of the most advanced intelligent clothes stores in Hollola, Finland. In this new store, customers can try on clothes in intelligent changing rooms supported by RFID technology. When trying on clothes, customers can use wall-mounted touch screens to browse additional product information, view suggestions for matching clothes and accessories and have alternative products or sizes brought straight to the changing room. NP Collection also uses a check-out system with RFID reading abilities to speed up customer service.

RFID tags are attached to all NP Collection's products during manufacture, and data from the tags is read at several points all the way to the central warehouse. The capacity to follow the stream of goods in real time provides substantial cost reductions in logistics and manufacture. On the store level, this data can be exploited to plan shelf-use in advance, for example. Finally, the RFID tags can also function as antitheft devices.

The RFID implementations continue a development project initiated by NP Collection in 2007 which covers the entire supply chain. The project aims to rationalize and intensify logistic processes and provide added value to customers by improving service levels.

The intelligent store concept will expand to St. Petersburg, Russia, during November, where NP Collection is opening a new clothes store equipped with smart Senso modules similar to those currently used in Hollola. During the next six months, the company will also implement a new, RFID-assisted Shop in Shop concept designed for use in NP Collection's retailers’ premises.

The solutions are supplied through cooperation between several parties including UPM Raflatac, RDN, SML, Impinj, Microsoft, IBM and Digia.

Source: global identification