Telstra aims for $$ savings by using RFID to track cellphones

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 02 July 2009 09:45

IT Industry - Strategy

Telstra has competed a trial of using RFID to track the movement of new cellphones from distribution centre to stores and estimates large scale rollout could save $4m per year and generate positive RoI in 18 months.


According to a report in RFID Journal , Telstra added RFID tags to 12,800 mobile phones sent from a Sydney distribution centre to six stores around the country and has estimated that RFID tagging of all phones sent to its 130 retail outlets could save the $4 million annually through reductions in labour costs and 'shrinkage'.

"Telstra indicates that it improved its inventory accuracy through increased visibility from 65 percent to 99 percent...and reduced the time it spent receiving goods by 75 percent, the time spent on stock-taking by 50 percent and the time spent searching for missing items by 50 percent," the report said.

According to RFID Journal, the system was developed by Telstra Enterprise & Government in conjunction with NEC. "Miami-based supply chain management firm Brightstar, which manages Telstra's DC, had approached Telstra's retail arm, urging it to trial RFID to improve visibility within the supply chain," it said.

Information from the tracking system was made available to the staff via a Web-based portal Adaptive Asset Manager (AAM), designed by NEC and customised by Telstra Enterprise & Government. Julien Marchand, Telstra's project manager, was quoted saying that Telstra "strongly consider full rollout of RFID across all 130 stores," but will have to wait until an IT systems refresh update underway across all stores is completed.