Does using the RFID Inventory system result in a more accurate inventory database? “You bet it does,” says William Oyster, DGSE’s president. The main reason for the improvement, he notes,is that when inventory records needed to be reconciled under the bar-code system, employees had to laboriously comb through records. Using the RFID reader in search mode, he says,usually rectifies the mismatched records quickly.

RFID-enabled system helped Santa Fe Optical reduce the time required to conduct inventory of the store’s 800 to 1,000 frames by at least 90 percent. He estimates an employee would need only about 20 minutes to conduct a complete inventory “Without RFID, it takes at least eight hours,” Dr. Ross stated. Santa Fe Optical plans to implement both the RFID-enabled security system and the RFID-enabled inventory management system in its two other locations

Optometrist Today with 9 stores and growing saw the value of deploying an RFID inventory system on multiple fronts, from the basic task of inventory taking to streamlining operations at their distribution center. Pre RFID inventorying their 9 stores involved closing their stores for 4-6 hours and a combined man-power resource of 20-22 employee’s (avg. 122 man-hours). Now there is no need to close their stores for inventory taking and the combined man-hour resource has been reduced to just under 4 hours.