“

That was the message we got from a customer. We print/program millions of tags a month. We even verify them and log the verification (read RFID tags from 10′ after programming to ensure they are not defective/working at long range, not just built-in printer near field).

We checked our production log and discovered: The logging showed around 10% failure to read. Had a chat with the printer operator and got the answer, “Oh, the system was failing tags at a high rate — so I turned it off the test.”

Loss for us? About 100,000 tags and a customer that needed more tags fast to replace the bad ones. Oh, and a temporary hit to our reliability and credibility.

We have a pretty involved/sophisticated QA process for tag programming and production. But, we still got destroyed by a business process failure: human.

Yet, we are seeing places that do no QA. They simply apply the tags and ship the products.

Why QA of your RFID tag matters…

If you are tagging goods (source tagging) for Walmart, your process probably looks like this:

1. Buy RFID tags pre-programmed with your UPC (SGTIN) from a tag/label vendor (ALL-TAG, Avery Dennison Smartrac, …) — probably embedded into your product labeling.
2. Place tags onto your label applicator and apply to product.
3. Make sure RFID tags are 100% good (right?) or, at least auditing?
4. Ship to Walmart

What we are finding: Step 3 (check tag quality doesn’t happen)

The problem with this: If RFID tags are wrong, it’s an invisible failure.

At best, you just have unencoded tags and never get paid because product never gets ‘received’ by the retailers RFID systems. At worst, the tags are encoded with the wrong SGTIN destroying the inventory calculations and forcing the store to pull all affected product to fix their inventory.

The point of our mistake: It will happen. I don’t care who you buy from — at some point you will get bad tags. We have been doing RFID for 20 years and have put in every safeguard we can. Just like the UPC scanability test and vision systems used to verify the product labeling is correct — the RFID also needs this.

There are a few inexpensive options to verify tags and SimplyRFiD can help with that.

From our simple audit handheld (Wave Audit) https://lnkd.in/gNNiU97B — to 100% inline conveyor testing w/ ejector integration.

We aren’t perfect. But, we know that and own up to getting better.

https://lnkd.in/gahPFapc