Narrator:
Welcome to the Supply Chain Visibility Stories, the podcast for supply chain managers, brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Supply Chain Visibility Stories is hosted by Bill Wohl, a technology industry veteran and enterprise software professional.

Bill Wohl:
Thanks, everyone for joining us. Today marks the next in a series of discussions exploring the intersection of technology and business. Our discussions are designed to be brief and focused. We think this format works well for our audience, and we hope it inspires all of you listening to think about how technology intersects the way you do your work and to engage with us. As the series continues, I'll have information about how to engage with the series and our guests at the end of today's program. My name is Bill Wohl and I'm honored to be the host of this series brought to you by ACSIS. I'm always fascinated by the business challenges faced by companies and how those challenges can be addressed by technology. So when we started the series, we talked about the macro trends impacting companies today and of course the discussion has revolved a lot around the impact of the pandemic and what that has meant for business and how it's been driving a renewed focus on global supply chains. And during the course of our many discussions, one of the recurring themes has been about capturing data, especially in the gaps along the supply chain and in certain industries, which is where we will focus today's discussion with a click down into retail. I have two guests on the program today. The first is Ashley Burkle, Director of Retail Business Development at Impinj, experts in the business of IoT technology. Welcome Ashley to the program.

Ashley Burkle:
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Bill Wohl:
Also returning to the podcast is David Perrine of ACSIS. David, welcome back. I'd like to start with you. We've talked a lot about the importance of accuracy in inventory and how important it is in a lot of segments, particularly so in retail, right?

David Perrine:
Yes. Yes. And Bill, you know, we are so pleased at ACSIS to have Ashley join us today and bring her experiences in the retail world. If it doesn't come out in the podcast, some quick search by our listeners will determine that the adoption rate of the RFID technology that we'll be speaking to in just a moment is almost 93% in the retail sector. Looking at that from an ACSIS standpoint where so much of our business is on the B2B side of things. We're really excited about how this adoption in the RFID in the retail industry could be brought upstream to the CPG manufacturers, the food and beverage, the many different industries that we all know of around the world. But I'll leave you with this before we turn it back over to our expert from Ashley Burkle. At the moment the endless report that there's approximately just under $2 trillion inventory distortion around the world. It's created by a variety of subject variety of reasons and but one of the the big ones is is the disruption to the supply chain. And we believe that while we can use the success of inventory visibility and inventory accuracy and labor efficiency that's being realized in the retail sector, it is directly adaptable to the industrial sector. And with that, Bill, I'll turn it back to you. But I think this is a great compare and contrast between two industry segments that can benefit from each other's knowledge.

Bill Wohl:
Thanks, David. Ashley, welcome to the program. Let's start with a quick description on Impinj, what you do as a business, and where does Ashley Burkle fit into the company.

Ashley Burkle:
Great. Thank you. So, for the last 20 years, Impinj has designed, manufactured, and invented ways to connect everything. So, Impinj is an IoT platform provider, and we focus on RAIN RFID. So, RAIN RFID is a passive UHF RFID, and it's the kind you think about being used in retail connecting inventory or used in baggage for airline tracking. So, our RAIN RFID platform includes endpoint IC's, which are the little silicon inside of the tag. Reader chips and readers and gateways. And so for myself,  I've been in retail and CPG for about 15 years. It's definitely a passion of mine.vI've been so excited over the past several years with Impinj to be able to bring this technology to retailers, which I saw as such a gap before I joined Impinj.

Bill Wohl:
It strikes us as we've talked about supply chain in this podcast series that there are a lot of issues in the retail space that have data as a central factor. You're correct, David, that people think about retail as a B2C business, but behind the endpoint stores, it's very much a B2B supply chain with a variety of manufacturers, distributors, shippers, and all along the lines. So Ashley, as you talk to retailers, I would imagine the topics of onhand goods, inventory accuracy, loss prevention, lots of topics to discuss. What are you hearing from customers about the big 2022 priorities in the retail space for supply chain?

Ashley Burkle:
Absolutely. And I think we've already talked a little bit about the disruption we've seen over the past couple of years. And retailers definitely were put into a difficult position at the beginning of the pandemic. Most of them scrambling to figure out how to continue to serve their shoppers and to continue to keep their business alive. And what we saw was a need for flexibility and agility in their supply chain and all the way through their value chain to their stores. So if we think about maybe how we shopped, we were doing curbside pickup, maybe buy online, pick up and store. And so retailers needed to figure out how to accomplish that pretty quickly. And those retailers that used RAIN RFID were able to do that because they knew what they had and where they had it. So I think that was a big part of the successful retailers we saw. And going into 2022, I don't think that changes. So having a better understanding of what you have and where you have it. So, we say visibility and accuracy is going to continue to play a big role in retailers being able to get their goods to the shoppers when they want it and where they want it.



Bill Wohl:
We like to talk in this podcast series about real-life examples of how this works. I had one of those. I went shopping for a pair of pants a month or two ago. Went to a nationally known retailer. We'll leave the names out. And of course, with the supply chain problems. The available selections are really small, but this particular retailer was doing such a good job with understanding their inventory. They were able to locate in my size the type of pants I wanted and the color I wanted. The guy at the counter said, "Look, this is the only pair in your size anywhere in the country. It's on the West Coast, but we're going to ship it to you. Will you buy it?" It strikes me that if the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that shoppers will choose retailers who can deliver that kind of service as opposed to those who can just sort of throw their hands up and say, "I don't have any and I don't know when I'm going to get some." That has to be a common, pardon the pun, a common thread, as you talk to retailers about the challenges of operating in such a supply chain-constrained environment.

Ashley Burkle:
Absolutely. I think again as shoppers ourselves, we know that when we're disappointed, we're less likely to go back to that retailer to shop for the next time. So when retailers are able to confidently expose their inventory, we call it available to promise online and we are not disappointed. You're building your brand, you're building your loyalty and really, the back end of that is the operational value of RAIN RFID. So we're definitely seeing that in retailers and their ability to connect you with a pair of pants that is thousands of miles away, but to figure that out quite quickly. And with traditional inventory systems, that's not that's not something that they can do. They half the time can't even figure it out in their own store, let alone connect it to every store and possibly every warehouse or distribution center within their organization.

Bill Wohl:
I love the expression you used about the retailer being able to confidently promise the customer the good. It strikes me that while the pandemic will eventually end, the way people conduct business either at the B2C or B2B level is probably changed forever because of what we've experienced these last 24 months. Would you agree?

Ashley Burkle:
Absolutely. And I think that traditionally, again, prior to the pandemic, what we saw retailers across the board doing was having safety stock, was having too much of an item to make sure that they can fulfill what the shopper wants. And we know from a retail perspective, their money is tied up in that inventory. So, why would you want more than you need? So, again, being able to sell down to the last item is a big deal in retail, and that's what RAIN RFID lets you do. We've definitely seen retailers come out talking about picking to the last item or not having to mark down items and therefore, you know, increasing their revenues because they know what they have and they can sell it during the correct season. , and to the shopper who is far away who wants it because they know where it is and how to sell it.



Bill Wohl:
Fascinating that the concept of just-in-time inventory, which was really developed by the automotive industry in manufacturing, has now made its way all the way to the end of the supply chain to the consumer. But my example was in apparel and mass retail. What other segments in retail  has these kinds of technology benefits really being discussed?

Ashley Burkle:
Sure. So I think, as you pointed out the largest adoption today is still in apparel, footwear  department stores, mass merchants, but what we're definitely seeing is more subsegments within retail really starting to understand how it can be valuable to their business. So, we're seeing electronics, beauty, do-it-yourself, drugstores all taking advantage of the different use cases within RAIN RFID. And a lot of that goes all the way back up into the manufacturing and the supply chain.  so, if we think about consumerer packaged goods as example, a lot of them are already complying with their customers, which are the retailers, with adding RAIN RFID tags to their items in order to again comply with their customers. And now they're looking at it going, "Wait, once it's tagged, we can actually take advantage of that within our supply chain while it's still with us and get the data that we need. We can automate our supply chain better. We can increase our speed and throughput." So we're definitely seeing  CPG as well starting to take advantage more heavily of their RAIN RFID opportunities.

Bill Wohl:
We talk about out at the retail level, and what you're describing is the benefit of the tags along the supply chain. How often are you seeing a breakdown by individual item, by carton, by pallet, and how are people making those choices?

Ashley Burkle:
It's a really great question because that's pretty much where I would recommend any enterprise to start. What am I going to tag and why? So, at the retail level, it is individual items and inventory which make the most sense. But as you start going back up in a supply chain, tagging cartons can help you better understand your throughput, where it's at, make sure you're getting it out the door and verifying that that carton or that pallet has left so you can send, you know, advanced shipping notices, and again, be confident and accurate. So in some cases, we're seeing more of the industrial or CPG looking at it from the carton and pallet level and even  quick serve restaurants, right? Carton and pallet level of what we're sending out. But then there's other subsegments of retail who will continue to see the value in tagging at the individual item level, which is still a valid part of the supply chain because you can send a box through the tunnel and read every item that's inside that box. So you're able to verify there are 12 of what is supposed to be in this box versus if there's only 11, we can pull it off and remake that carton. So, it definitely is the most important question to start with when any company is looking at how can I add RAIN RFID to my value chain.

Bill Wohl:
We only have a few minutes left and I think we could talk about this topic. Maybe we should have you back as a guest in a future podcast, but you can't talk about retail without talking about loss prevention. What's the role of RFID tagging in loss prevention? We've talked inventory, but loss prevention is major concern of retailers.

Ashley Burkle:
It absolutely is and it's it's growing in the news as we all know. So leveraging RAIN RFID at the exit not only can replace the traditional EAS with real-time alarms and alerts, but can also give data about what item left, where it left, and when it left. And really this data to retailers, they've never had this before. And it could change the paradigm for loss prevention. So retailers can create a more proactive strategy instead of just reactive actions. I think it's going to be really the next big opportunity for retailers in loss prevention.

Bill Wohl:
So, as a last question, I'll I'll take a hint off what you just said on what's next. We always like to look ahead to sort of the future of this technology. I'm hearing more and more about the term dark warehouses. What is that all about?

Ashley Burkle:
Absolutely. So, the more you automate a warehouse, obviously the the less individual interaction has to happen. So, eventually, if a warehouse is completely automated. It can go dark because you're not having individuals walking around the warehouse and interacting with, you know, the items within a warehouse. And so, RAIN RFID plays a crucial role in being able to have a dark warehouse, which again with the automation and the speed will allow for cost cutting, being more economical and also guaranteeing, especially with today's labor shortages, that you're able to get your products out the door.

Bill Wohl:
Outstanding. David, we have so many issues that we talk about in this podcast and I think for supply chain leaders, it's a daunting task to think about all of the potential projects. The quintessential question always is where do you get started?

David Perrine:
Yeah, Bill always a great question to close with and particularly when we have such a a guest like Ashley who is just you know I I've been in this industry for a very long time and every when I hear what Ashley said in the adoption in the retail industry and the success they're having it makes me excited for the use of the RAIN RFID and this this very exciting technology across all industries. So I think you know the place to start is is you know any journey begins with the first step it's to reach out to to an Impinj reach out to ACSIS or reach out to your current supplier and begin that journey of of discovery use the internet of course you know there's lots of useful information out there about getting started and what we have seen as I could speak to I think Impinj could could confirm this as well as a access of course is that there's a bit of a a mystery about RFID and just based on the information that actually just shared with us there doesn't need to be this technology is very stable it's very scalable it's very efficient from a cost standpoint and it yields very successful projects but in order to get started reach out to us we're always available whether it's Inpimj or ACSIS or to to answer questions and to help you get that first step in the journey.

Bill Wohl:
Choose the right partners. Always good advice. David, thanks for always being on the program. And Ashley, thanks so much for being on. I'm sure we're going to be talking to you and the folks at Impinj again because the topic of supply chain and retail is so broad. Thanks for being on the program.

Ashley Burkle:
Thank you so much.

Bill Wohl:
That wraps up today's podcast. My thanks to ACSIS for making this podcast series possible. We welcome your comments and questions about the discussions on these podcasts. You can engage with us at the official ACSIS Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. So, be a part of the discussion. I'm your host, Bill Wohl. And for everyone at ACSIS and our guests, thanks for joining. We look forward to our next discussion talk soon. 

Narrator:
Thank you for listening to Supply Chain Visibility Stories brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Visit us on the web at ACSISinc.com. That's acsisinc.com or join the dialogue on social media. Look for ACSIS Inc. on LinkedIn and Twitter. Join us next time for supply chain visibility stories brought to you by ACSIS.