Wal-Mart's RFID Initiative: A Timeline

By HaLeigh Boutin

Wal-Mart's RFID initiative has taken on a life of its own. Operations have expanded from eight manufacturers and seven stores in 2004, to over 600 suppliers and around 1,000 stores to be live at the start of 2007. From management alterations to a technology upgrade, the Wal-Mart RFID pilot has withstood the ups and downs that the industry, in its earlier years, quite often presented.

April 2004: Wal-Mart's pilot program began in Dallas, TX, throughout seven store locations including Sam's Club stores. The tags were placed on pallets and containers and tracked shipments from eight manufacturers to the distribution centers and then to the stores.

January 2005: Mandates were sent out to the company's top 100 suppliers to use RFID technology. The program was officially live.

October 2005: An independent pilot program conducted by the University of Arkansas with cooperation of Wal-Mart stores showed a 16% reduction in out-of-stock products. The program used 12 RFID piloted stores and 12 control stores for 29 weeks. The study proved that the RFID enabled stores were 63% more effective than the control stores.

February 2006: Wal-Mart now had around 145 suppliers tagging. The next 200 suppliers were in the beginning stages of going live. Future plans for the program included the upgrade and acceptance of only Gen 2 technology by the middle of year, and the expectancy of 600 suppliers at 1000 store locations to be live by 2007.

April 2006: Wal-Mart's previous Executive Vice President of Logistics and Supply Chains, Rollin Ford, was announced as the new Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. With his new position, Ford reaffirmed the company's commitment to EPC.

April 2006: Bear Sterns reports that a suspected contract was made between Wal-Mart and technology providers Alien and Impinj. The order contracted a supposed rollout of 15,000 readers for DCs and stores, but the vendors did not confirm the reports.

September 2006: Five hundred stores were set to go online by the end of 2007, making a total of 1,000 stores RFID enabled making up 25% of Wal-Mart's U.S. based store locations.

Today, the rollout has led to initiative sprawls, including Wal-Mart Canada, which was scheduled for deployment during the fall of 2006 and into 2007. Based in southern Ontario, 16 suppliers were asked to take part in the program, many of which are also involved in the rollout operations in the U.S. Participation in the program will be voluntary, unlike the U.S. program that required mandatory participation from the suppliers.