RFID Early Adopter

In 2004, the Kimberly-Clark Corporation developed a five-year RFID Strategic Applications plan that focuses on key strategic applications choices that would utilize RFID to deliver new value to both its customer and to Kimberly-Clark.

In June 2005, the industry learned that Kimberly-Clark followed through with its plans in so far, leading an effort to develop the first standardized interfaces between SAP AII (Auto-ID infrastructure) and the OAT Foundation Suite. The objective was to combine the intelligent RFID device management and data collection capabilities of OATSystems into and alongside Kimberly-Clark's SAP RFID post-mandate applications.

This dedicated approach to develop and refine the interface earned Kimberly-Clark the RFID Early Adopter award at this year's Consumer Goods Technology 2005 Conference.

With SAP and OAT Systems working together, the interface has now progressed from a concept pilot to a production-ready capability. Kimberly-Clark expects to deploy this interface in production early next year to support the development of RFID value-driven collaboration applications.

Continuing Education
While the CGT award formally recognizes Kimberly-Clark for its partnership with SAP and OATSystems, a surplus of announcements surrounding its RFID strategic applications plan have come to light in recent months.

For one, Kimberly-Clark is working with SAP to develop an RFID-based E-POD solution, designed to improve inventory visibility, streamline shipping and receiving processes, reduce invoice discrepancies and strengthen overall business collaboration between manufacturers and retailers. "We expect E-POD to go live in early 2006," says Terry Assink, VP of Information Technology Services and CIO. "The E-POD integrated business transaction and decision support technology will form the basis for SAP's RFID-enabled business processes and will allow K-C to begin to deliver RFID value and benefit internally, as well as to our customers."

Because E-POD will also "track and trace" the company's products throughout the extended supply chain, it will also provide the foundation for customer and consumer insights. The SAP E-POD solution will not only collect and leverage RFID data, but it will also associate key business event data to provide visibility into product flow analysis and retail in-stock position.

Kimberly-Clark also recently formed a collaborative alliance with TrueDemand, which develops RFID-enabled business applications. "K-C and TrueDemand will explore ways to use RFID technologies to predict and reduce out-of-stock and excess inventory situations in the retail marketplace. We hope to have initial pilot results with TrueDemand early next year," says Assink.

The TrueDemand Out-of-Stock Management application will utilize most of the same information collected and stored by the SAP Auto ID infrastructure and the SAP E-POD application -- making it a logical retail in-stock management extension of Kimberly-Clark's RFID application strategy.

On the Front Line
Kimberly-Clark's positioning as an RFID Early Adopter is also supported by EPCglobal Inc., which awarded the company the first Global Performance Test Center Accreditation Marks for its dedicated RFID research lab. The accreditation indicates that Kimberly-Clark's research facility is at the forefront when it comes to using a standard set of performance test profiles to simulate real-world conditions in testing the readability of end-user products that are tagged with RFID-enabled EPCs. "We are currently focused on RFID Gen 2 technology testing and readiness, and we remain heavily involved with EPCglobal standards and test case development," says Cheryl Perkins, senior vice president and chief technology officer for Kimberly-Clark.

"As we continue to explore the potential of RFID technology, we believe it will enable Kimberly-Clark to drive business value and become an 'indispensable partner' with our retail customers," says Perkins. "RFID allows us to be more responsive and insightful to their business needs, and in the end both Kimberly-Clark and our retail customers will jointly benefit."