Brian Pause, VP of Business Development & Product Management With the complexity of numerous plant locations and legacy systems–the need to secure individual device data that operates over heterogeneous networks is a major challenge in the retail space. The proliferation of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Internet of Things (IoT) has started to exert a major influence in the retail arena, where each manufactured item passing through the conveyor is being tracked throughout their production and subsequent life cycle to record the inventory movement and readily identify the missing items. Retailers require an unprecedented collaboration, connectivity and coordination from each self-aware sensors, to have a complete visibility on the item level—how many products are being produced, what items are being shipped, what products are currently available and missing out in their warehouse and more. Applying the right security solutions at every level of retail supply chain, Transcends, a provider of sensor based software, connects the RFID reader and sensor network to analyze information in real-time, minimize inventory losses, improve customer satisfaction and increase sales. “At Transcends, our mission is to make RFID implementations simple for a variety of business uses, from manufacturing and work-in-progress, to asset tracking and inventory control,” says Brian Pause, VP of Business Development & Product Management, Transcends.
Transcends offers a wide array of “out-of-the-box” products such as RIFIDI-enabled servers and appliances, which help to develop and implement successful RFID solutions. “Connecting the IoT with people, Transcends' Asset Tracking solution tracks assets, records the last seen location and keeps a history of all locations the asset has been seen,” comments Pause. The solution uses fixed readers and rules to monitor products in real-time and also alerts the management when item counts fall below a specified threshold, too many products are removed in a short period of time, or items exit without passing through the check out register.
At Transcends, our mission is to make RFID implementations simple for a variety of business uses, from manufacturing to asset tracking and retail inventory management
To enable efficient counting of tagged assets, Transcends leverages its inventory control tool with the RFID handheld, ensuring high inventory accuracy, speeding up cycle counts, reducing labor costs and freeing up staff from mundane tasks. Integrating with cloud providers like Amazon, Azure, and Salesforce.com and IoT Platforms such as AWS IoT, Thingworx, GE’s Predix and Ubidots, Transcends offers a complete visibility and control on what is going on in the warehouse and establish an audit trail to reduce lost items.
“Our partnership with the leading manufacturers and vendors to build RFID business solutions or develop sensor based appliances and applications for optimizing retail supply chain, enables retailers to have full visibility and control over the inventories,” states Pause. For instance, one of Transcends’ clients, an apparel rental company established a new warehouse in a short timeframe. The company wanted to track inventory more effectively and improve customer experience. With Transcends’ RIFIDI platform, the company gained real-time visibility into their individual item level, thereby increasing productivity, workflow throughput, quality and reliability, while reducing labor and inventory costs.
The road ahead for Transcends looks promising. “The innovation of IoT and sensor technology is just the beginning of the wave. We are en route to bring in innovative, valuable business solutions to the market, with improved quality service and enhanced security of the IoT devices and networks,” concludes Pause.
