BANGALORE, INDIA:Mphasis, an EDS company and a provider in IT products and services recently deployed a state-of-the-art RFID solution at Bhima & Brothers Jewelers, Mysore (B&BJ), a jewelery retail chain in South India.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), is an technology that helps the retail businesses with adequate tracking processes in the supply chain with the use of radio waves.

Inadequate tracking processes in the supply chain could have a impact on the company's cash and assets which in turn results in lower profits.

RFID technology helps address key concerns such as inventory inaccuracies, stocks outs, shrinkage, counterfeit products, underutilization of assets, inefficient product recalls and ineffective customer service.

Prior to deploying this solution the stock management process at Bhima was entirely handled on manual basis.

"Usually the day started one hour prior to the business hours for checking the stock inventory and ended one hour after the business hours to take a stock inventory on the opening balance to closing balance." said N. Gopalakrishnan, MD, Bhima & Brothers Jewelers, Mysore.

He further said that this engagement was carried out by the staff and they just replaced the empty rows of the trays by a similar ornament of the same category with a different net gold weight.

This intensive manual handling of the stock led to many constrains such as long working hours, inefficiency in the stock check, restricting check only for large volumes etc.

"As part of the stock check, the key information any jeweler would want to have is the total net gold weight in his store at any time. Getting this with manual operation was quite challenging," added Gopalakrishnan.

Additionally, they wanted their sales executives to spend quality time with the customers, instead major part was spent on computing the price manually, based on current gold price, purity, making charges, weight of the stones etc.

The RFID solution deployed by Mphasis would help Bhima to ease the manually intensive jewelery retail business.

The current software deployed provides with an asset tracking module, product information module, and an RFID middle-ware.

The asset tracking runs as a standalone application that helps in stock taking and sending alerts on missing items through RFID, while the product information module is a PDA application that synchronizes the data on daily basis to get information on prices and inventory. This would enable the sales executives to give quick responses for the customers.

An RFID middle-ware, which provide connectors gets integrated with the existing store system.

"MphasiS has built an RFID framework that is flexible to adapt to the changing needs of the customer. The architecture enables easy integration with existing application," said Sundaresan Swaminathan, head of consumer Industry and Retail, MphasiS.

"Design is very intuitive from an end-user perspective, necessitating no major training for the sales staff. The solution saves time and ensures accuracy."

Especially to suit with the jewelery retail business, Mphasis has evaluated a few options such as paper based barcode and a scanner.

"For jewelry, where the customer wants to touch, feel and wear and evaluate the product, paper-based barcode is not the best of choice," added Swaminathan.

Mphasis has provided a mechanism to automate the billing activity. Upon sale of the item, ornaments are placed on the desk top reader that automatically facilitates the billing activity of the item sold.

The implementation of this technology has benefited Bhima in increasing efficiency and speed. Mphasis RFID application was integrated with the existing jewelry system without major changes, which ensured no extra costs and minimal changes to the existing work-flow.

"Physical stock check for more than 10,000 items can be done with 100 per cent read accuracy with reduction of manual effort to an extent of 97 per cent. The billing at POS would take flat 45 seconds, which used to take 5 to 8 minutes," added Gopalakrishnan.

"There is an Instant computation of price estimates for various combinations of products. The earlier process use to take more than 5 minutes."

He further said that after implementing this technology, their firm's efficiency levels have gone up considerably.