Toshiba Regensburg RFID Solution delivers spectacular ROI
May 17th 2007

Toshiba Europe, which handles the customer-specific configuration of every laptop destined for the EMEA region, claimes its Regensburg RFID system produced two million RFID tags after just six months in operation.

The Regensburg plant, one of the largest plants in Europe had suffered from severe congestion in its warehouses and implemented the RFID system in order to increase product availability by establishing an efficient error-free logistics process at both the warehousing and sales processing levels without increasing overall costs.

The RFID system, which uses Toshiba B-SX4 label printers and UPM Raflatec RFID tags is coupled to an RFID reader from Tyco ADT Fire & Security, allows pallets to flow continuously through a single RFID gate with the entire content of each pallet scanned and booked in a single movement before it is stored for further processing.  

Dramatically reducing the problem of congestion between production and finished goods warehousing, the RFID solution has resulted in an increase in the daily average throughput of configured and ready for shipment laptop PCs from 9,500 units per day  to 17,300 units per day, an increase of 81/% with an impressive 99.97% accuracy rate.  This in turn has resulted in a 75% reduction in handling time and a 40% reduction in booking costs per unit.  Other ancillary savings are becoming apparent as the project progresses.

 “Implementing this solution is showing that RFID can provide tangible benefits for manufacturers in their processes without the need for customer mandates to drive RFID adoption,” said Andreas Unterbusch, Toshiba TEC RFID Project Manager “Because all the notebooks are individually tagged, future expected requirements from retailers are already in place.”

Toshiba is currently in the process of outsourcing the configuration process at the Regensburg facility. The RFID solution is considered a key competitive advantage by potential outsourcing partners and will help the notebook vendor to continue its successful drive in the European marketplace.

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