Abstract:

The advancement of technology has greatly impacted the efficiency and accuracy of measuring and managing inventory. The benefits are considerable: less time counting inventory, more accurate inventory counts, better on-shelf availability, and ultimately, higher customer satisfaction. In the past, inventory accuracy has been calculated in many different ways. This paper reviews the most prominent inventory accuracy methods and proposes the most appropriate method for measuring inventory accuracy across industry lines. Perpetual Inventory (PI) is what is believed to be in a store or facility at any given time, and PI Accuracy is how closely the actual count of units in the store is to what is thought to be there. The underlying notion of PI Accuracy seems universal, but it is debated on how this exact metric should be calculated and interpreted. This paper also explores these differences in detail, including their calculations and associated implications.

Download the Full Research Paper

Abstract:

Public schools in the United States are mandated by State legislatures to conduct periodic school bus evacuation training for the benefit of students. The approach to this training varies widely among school systems and there is rarely documentation describing the manner of testing. Typically, there is only a record that the training itself was conducted. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is becoming more prevalent in many applications related to the safe transport of children on school buses. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of RFID to measure evacuation times compared to video and/or stopwatch measurements, for thirty-four passengers on a Type “D” school bus. The results obtained over three evacuation scenarios (front door only; rear door only; both doors simultaneously) revealed no statistically significant difference between those times recorded by RFID and those observed by video analysis for all trials. Based on these findings, RFID has the potential to provide a fast, cheap, non-invasive way to record school bus evacuation times, eliminating lengthy video analysis. Elimination of stopwatch and/or videotape analysis could lead to numerous schools uploading evacuation training times into a central repository, building a reliable source for benchmarking and potential design changes for emergency exit systems. 

Download the Full Research Paper

Abstract:

“2023 Survey of Retail Innovations” explores the latest trends in brick-and-mortar retail. The paper provides an overview of how the retail industry is adapting to the changing shopping habits of consumers in the digital age and highlights the importance of enhancing the in-store experience to remain competitive. The survey views the innovation through the lens of the team’s Process, Layout, Metrics Model. The DART Group explains how each of the innovations often impact time in store, product handling, and dependence on associates.

Download the Full Research Paper

Abstract:

In March 2021, The DART Group published “Quantifying Customer Experience,” which explored how the group utilizes the Process, Layout, Metrics, Model to quantify customer experience in brick-and-mortar stores. In the second edition of the paper, DART has added an additional case study, updates on their virtual reality work, and up-to-date information on the team’s projects and goals.” Quantifying Customer Experience: Revised and Expanded” sheds light on the importance of brick-and-mortar customer experience, while bringing a data-driven approach to measuring its improvement and innovation.

Download the Full Research Paper

The “BOPIS Retailer Scorecard” was developed by a team under Dr. Bill Hardgrave with the purpose of testing the Omni-Channel claims of many retailers in the United States. The scorecard was developed to analyze a retailer’s ‘buy-online-pickup-in-store’ (BOPIS) capabilities and compare their performance to other retailers in the industry. Retailers are judged across the three stages of a BOPIS order: online operations, communication between customer and retailer, and pickup process. The aggregated results for twenty (20) of the nation’s largest retailers are also incorporated into this document to provide industry averages for comparative purposes.

Download and read the AUBIE BOPIS Retailer Scorecard Paper

Abstract:

Quantifying brick-and-mortar customer experience has been a challenge daunting retailers and brands alike. Recognizing this, The DART Group has developed a toolset that quantifies customer experience and observes alterations of consumer behavior when integrated technology solutions are implemented. By visiting brick-and-mortar stores, evaluating aspects of customer experience, and constructing a Process, Layout, and Metric (PLM) Model, the identified knowledge gap for a retailer can be closed. The PLM Model shows in-store processes with correlating layouts. These layouts show physical changes used to enhance customer experience, ultimately addressing metrics desired by the retailer.

Download the Full Research Paper

Abstract:

The CHIP (CHain Integration Project) Initiative at the Auburn University RFID Lab recently concluded its Proof-of-Concept phase, which sought to prove the viability of a blockchain solution for serialized data exchange. Nike, PVH Corp., HermanKay, Kohl’s, and Macy’s participated in the first phase of the project by contributing item-level data streams from various supply chain nodes from January to December 2019. The project was able to successfully integrate serialized data streams from source to store, connecting the dots between isolated touch points and forging a history for each product that passed through the supply chain.

The solution was constructed on a Hyperledger Fabric foundation and additional details regarding the business case, solution architecture, and next steps are available in the official CHIP Whitepaper.

Download the full research paper

In the evolving world of international supply chain, the demand for improved product visibility and source-to-store traceability has never been higher. Many brands and retailers operate trade networks that integrate hundreds of suppliers, logistics providers, and distribution channels with physical footprints spanning the globe. In addition
to the distributed nature of supply chain stakeholders, disparate information systems suffer constant communication issues between trade partners, which is largely due to outdated digital strategies and complex, home-grown systems.
These assorted systems produce different dialects of data, creating more confusion than clarity when it comes to exchanging product information between trade partners. As legacy systems evolve and serialized systems like RFID are adopted, the retail industry as a whole generates exponential amounts of data. In fact, most supply chains today
are flooded with 50 times more data than they were just five years earlier, yet only a quarter of that data is utilized in a relevant timeframe (1).

Collectively, burdensome exchange practices and dissimilar data have inhibited the industry’s ability to leverage their growing Internet-of-Things (IoT) infrastructure and extract supply chain-wide insights. These isolated systems coupled with outdated exchange methods not only restrict visibility throughout the supply chain but also underpin fundamental business operations. Consequently, widespread inefficiencies and substantial costs propagate from one stakeholder to the next. As a result, billions of dollars are lost each year throughout the industry as retailers, brand owners, and logistics providers are plagued by problems like shrink, claims, and counterfeiting. These issues represent only a handful of the problems facing the global supply chain ecosystem, and the retail apparel industry as a whole is plagued with cost-consuming pain points that are consequences of deficient data exploitation.

Enter blockchain, a transformative technology introduced by cryptocurrencies that holds the promise of alleviating today’s supply chain pain points. Blockchain technology enables a new type of business model driven by the collaboration between parties who work together to establish a trusted record of information that is maintained through mutual agreement, or “consensus.” The responsibility of governing this network and maintaining a collective record of truth is shared amongst network participants, eliminating the need for third parties to facilitate exchange or to act as trusted middlemen. By removing the need for outside entities to establish trust or vouch for integrity, those participating in a blockchain network are able to transact directly and more efficiently, as well as maintain ownership of their data. In the case of a trade network, all relevant stakeholders could share the responsibility of contributing and independently validating product information as goods flow through the supply chain, resulting in a mutually agreed-upon record of information available to relevant trade partners.

Given the current business landscape, there is tremendous application potential for blockchain technology to streamline exchange and cultivate collaboration between trade partners. The retail apparel industry is well-positioned to utilize blockchain, especially where IoT infrastructure and serialized data systems are already in place. Successful implementation of a blockchain-based solution for supply chain is dependent on each stakeholder’s
ability to identify products and capture information related to those products. Therefore, serialized systems, like RFID or other solutions that are capable of capturing item-level information, are the foundational data sources for a blockchain solution—the more granular the product information is, the more valuable the blockchain application can be. However, use of blockchain technology in retail apparel today is limited, given that insufficient exploration has yet to prove out the potential of this technology.

Download and read the full paper, Why Retail is Ready for Blockchain

Abstract:

Over the past several years, we have worked with many retailers (large and small) on their RFID pilots and early-stage deployments. Every pilot and deployment is different and presents its own opportunities and challenges. However, across all of these projects, we have recognized some common errors and pitfalls that retailers face. Accordingly, we have distilled these errors and pitfalls into a list of 10 deployment rules. While following these rules will not guarantee pilot or deployment success, they can hopefully make one aware of the issues and, thus, make a decision to either make a correction or intentionally accept the potential consequences of ignoring the pitfall. Although this is not an exhaustive list, the 10 rules represent the most severe and most common pitfalls.

Abstract:

The study is a continuation of the Phase I study into Supplier ROI, and was performed through 2011 with funding by GS1 US and the American Apparel and Footwear Association AAFA. The goal of the research was to focus on a few key use cases as identified in Phase I, analyze RFID data collected from Retail Suppliers who are implementing these use cases, and determine to what extent RFID can be used to generate ROI within a Supplier’s own operations. Much of the research focused on the Supplier’s Distribution Centers, and how RFID can help with inventory accuracy, shipping accuracy, and the costs to achieve high levels of accuracy. Also the effects of inventory accuracy on Retailer claims and DC operations are discussed. Some tools are included to allow suppliers to calculate potential ROI within their own operations.