28 DC VELOCITY JULY 2016 www.dcvelocity.com
newsworthy
In a 1985 Levi Strauss & Co. commercial, a man wearing
nothing but Levi’s 501 jeans sinks into a bathtub while Sam
Cooke croons the opening lines to the song “Wonderful
World”: “Don’t know much about history/Don’t know
much biology ...”
The song’s lyrics notwithstanding, it’s safe to say there’s
one thing San Francisco-based Levi Strauss does know a lot
about: radio-frequency identification technology, or RFID.
In recognition of its pioneering efforts in
implementing the auto-identification technology, the iconic clothing manufacturer
recently won the 2016 Apparel and General
Merchandise Operational Excellence Award
presented by GS1 US, the standards organization that is responsible for the electronic
product codes (EPC) and standards used with
RFID. The award is based on a vote of the
130 member companies in the organization’s Apparel and
General Merchandise Initiative.
Levi Strauss’s RFID journey began in 2005 with a pilot
program that involved tagging individual items for one
customer in the United States and Levi Strauss retail stores
in Mexico. Since then, the company has expanded its efforts
and is now tagging 12 million items each year.
“Levi Strauss was one of the first companies that stood up
on behalf of the technology and promoted it as a powerful
tool for improving inventory accuracy,” said Melanie Nuce,
GS1 US vice president of apparel and general merchandise.
As it ramped up implementation of the technology, however, the clothing company found that it also had to rework
its supply chain operations. Originally, Levi Strauss tagged
its jeans and khakis at its distribution centers, but that soon
became inefficient. The company then decided to move
RFID tagging to the factories and worked with its 50-plus
manufacturing partners to do so.
According to Nuce, tagging at the manufacturing source has proved to be more cost-effective and scalable than tagging at DCs farther
downstream because RFID tags can be applied
at the same time that other clothing labels and
tags are attached to the merchandise.
To accomplish the transfer of tagging to the
manufacturing facilities, Levi Strauss worked
closely with its partners to educate them on
using EPC standards, sourcing and applying RFID tags,
compliance requirements, and the overall benefits of RFID.
In 18 months, the company went from tagging 100 percent
of its U.S. apparel at its own DCs to tagging more than 85
percent at its suppliers’ manufacturing sites. The company
plans to continue to expand the program.
That change resulted in significant productivity improvements and double-digit cost savings, according to Levi
Levi Strauss received the award at the GS1
Connect 2016 conference. GS1 also presented four
other awards at that time. Dan C. Smith, former
chief information officer at Saks Fifth Avenue,
Lord & Taylor, and Hudson’s Bay Co. and current
president of RetailWise Consulting, received the
GS1 US Apparel and General Merchandise Roger
Milliken Career Achievement Award. UPS was
presented with the Corporate Social Responsibility
Award for using GS1 standards to enhance electronic links with customers while reducing its
carbon footprint. Dillard’s Inc. received the
Standards Innovation Award for using GS1 standards to automate the capture and sharing of
product information for e-commerce product
setup and publication. The nonprofit organization
“The Blessing Basket Project” received the Small
Business Standards Success Award.
—Susan Lacefield
Levi Strauss’s wonderful RFID world
Sixteen dealer divisions across North America have achieved
the 2015 Hyster Dealer of Distinction designation, an annual
honor handed out to dealers who have driven their companies
to the highest level of performance in all functional areas of the
business. … At CeMat, SSI Schaefer’s Weasel driverless transport
systems won the IFOY award in the “Intralogistics Solutions” category. In a tight finish, the in-plant fleet solution earned the title
of “Intralogistics Solution of the Year.” … Diebold Inc. honored
XPO Logistics Inc. with the 2016 Platinum Award for Supplier
Excellence. … Intelligrated’s dynamic discharge compensation
technology was recognized as a 2016 MHI innovation award winner. … Crown Equipment Corp. has announced its 2015 best-per-forming company-owned branches and independent dealers
in North America. Action Lift Inc. in Pittston, Pa., and Crown
Lift Trucks, Milwaukee/Madison/Green Bay, Wis., each earned
the prestigious James F. Dicke Pioneer Award as the company’s
top-performing dealer and branch, respectively. Crown also recognized 16 retail locations with Summit and Ascent awards for
outstanding achievements in sales and customer satisfaction.
accolades
