Testing and deploying an RFID-based real-time locating system at a fashion retailer: A case study

Abstract

In this paper, the testing and deployment of an RFID-based Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) at a fashion retailer is presented. An RTLS is a combination of hardware and software systems to determine automatically and in real-time the coordinates of an object. Although this goal might be achieved with different technologies, several studies suggest the centrality of RFID as a locating system technology. Nonetheless, the literature presents a lack of studies that investigate on real applications of RTLS in retailing. To fill this gap, our study reports the testing and deploying phases of an RFID RTLS at the Diffusione Tessile store in Pomezia, Rome (Italy). The selected store is, at present, the biggest of the whole firm in terms of number of garments exposed. During a recent refurbishment of the store, the company installed a RTLS composed of 254 antennas linked through multiplexers to 13 readers. The RTLS was designed after an extensive lab-testing phase, and it is provided with two different algorithms for locating garments on the sales floor area. A first installation of the system was finished in early 2015, but this first implementation resulted in some discrepancies amongst different antennas and some corrections were made. In autumn 2015, the system was then tested for the first time in the field: the results of all the testing phase are reported in the paper. This case study sparks interest and suggests several ideas for a deployment of RTLS in a fashion store. Also, and maybe more important, the points of strength and weakness of our implementation could help practitioners and researchers to maximise the benefits of future RTLS implementations in the fashion industry and discover new prospective research topics within this sector.