Distributor of PC solutions for OEMs implements product to meet Wal-Mart mandate
Houston — December 16, 2004 — Shipcom Wireless Inc., a global provider of radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions, and Tatung Co. of America Inc. announced today that they have shipped out cases tagged with RFID/electronic product code (EPC) labels to meet the Wal-Mart mandate, using the CATAMARAN product of Shipcom Wireless.
Founded in 1972 and based in Long Beach, Calif., Tatung Co. of America Inc. distributes a variety of products and offers a full range of manufacturing service and solutions for personal computer and electronics original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
One of the top PC and related products suppliers of Wal-Mart is requiring that its contract manufacturers apply RFID tags on all cases being shipped to Wal-Mart.
The project is an end-to-end example of using RFID in the supply chain, according to Shipcom. Each case at Tatung is labeled with an EPC tag, which contains the product information. The cases are put on pallets, which in turn are EPC tagged and commissioned. This data is then supplied to Wal-Mart.
The project, started early in the year, had many features. First was the quick integration that the solution's edge server provided to Tatung's enterprise system. The second was the switch to the use of 96-bit tags from 64-bit tags after the project started. Finally, the project pursued an aggressive timeline to meet the mandate.
"Shipcom really understood the EPC/RFID requirements and Tatung's ERP integration. The Shipcom team was able to meet the rigorous timeline, and work with the Tatung team to meet all our challenges," said Chris Chu, director of Information Technology at Tatung. He also said Tatung has expanded the use of the RFID case tagging process from one site to two sites with multi-production lines.
