UHF RFID technology is an innovative tool for clothing supply chain management

1. Industry Overview

The clothing industry has always been regarded as a labor-intensive industry with low technology content, but in fact, science and technology play a vital role in the development of the entire industry. From the production of clothing fabrics to clothing design, production, logistics to terminal sales, scientific and technological forces run through every link. However, traditional supply chain management faces a series of challenges, such as inaccurate inventory information, frequent out-of-stock, untraceable goods, frequent wrong shipments, asynchronous logistics and information flow, and high manual labor intensity.

In recent years, more and more clothing companies have realized the importance of scientific and technological forces and began to explore supply chain management represented by barcode technology. Through barcode scanning, companies have achieved a certain degree of informatization in the warehousing and inventory links, and improved the level of supply chain management. However, due to the limitations of barcodes, such as limited recognition range, difficulty in batch reading, and easy damage, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the informatization management of the clothing supply chain.

2. Technical Application

Ultra-high frequency RFID technology, as a new automatic identification technology, is changing the supply chain management model of the clothing industry. This technology adopts the principle of wireless radio frequency identification, has the ability to penetrate obstacles, can identify goods in motion, and RFID tags can be reused. These characteristics make RFID technology the most suitable technology for the clothing industry. By binding RFID tags on clothing and obtaining tag information through RFID handheld terminals, the entire clothing process can be managed.

RFID technology is used to solve the problems of insufficient original boxes and low efficiency in the process of product offline to factory delivery, collection center receipt, sorting and delivery, etc., to achieve accurate and fast sorting and packing of clothing products, greatly shorten the clothing supply cycle, and reduce the operating costs of enterprises.

3. System Design

The application of RFID in clothing supply chain management is to bind RFID tags to clothing, and obtain clothing tag information through RFID Terminals in the entire supply chain to achieve the purpose of managing the entire clothing process.

In clothing supply chain management, the core applications of RFID technology include accurate packing, inbound and outbound management, and warehouse inventory.

3.1 Accurate Packing

RFID tags are the basis of the entire RFID system. Before packing, each RFID electronic tag needs to be encoded and bound to the corresponding clothing to identify and track clothing information.

By sticking, embedding or implanting RFID tags on each piece of clothing, accurate packing of clothing can be achieved, solving the problem that clothing cannot be identified and tracked in the traditional packing process.

RFID tags can be initialized and printed by RFID printers, or barcode information can be printed on the labels. For clothing companies with many suppliers, RFID tags can be issued to downstream suppliers by issuing cards, and the suppliers will complete the binding of RFID tags and clothing.

3.2 In and out of warehouse management

RFID Readers are deployed in the warehouse. When the clothing arrives at the company, it can be batched into the warehouse through the RFID reader without unpacking, and the warehouse entry form and warehouse entry data can be verified to ensure the consistency of logistics and data flow.

Clothing out of the warehouse is also a reverse process. The information of outgoing clothing is obtained in batches through the RFID reader, and the outgoing warehouse form is verified to ensure the consistency of logistics and data flow.

3.3 Warehouse Inventory

The traditional inventory method usually uses barcode or manual inventory one by one, which is labor-intensive, slow, inefficient, prone to errors and has large errors. The application of RFID technology can give full play to its advantages of long-distance and simultaneous reading of multiple tags.

The operator only needs to download the clothing information that needs to be counted in the background system, and then use the RFID handheld terminal to quickly and accurately compare the system information with the actual collected clothing information in the warehouse to complete the inventory task.

3.4 Extended Application

RFID technology can also be applied to the warehouse's anti-theft system. By installing an RFID reading channel at the warehouse gate, the system can identify and alarm any unauthorized entry and exit of clothing products.

The application of RFID technology in clothing supply chain management can realize the automation of warehouse management, check the inventory status at any time, and track the logistics process of products in real time. The use of RFID electronic tags can easily record the receipt information of goods, and realize the automation of delivery and distribution, ensuring that there will be no omissions and losses in the inventory. Real-time and transparent supply management can not only ensure the first-in-first-out of clothing, but also provide a scientific basis for the sales, production and stocking of clothing.