Enhanced Services for Manufacturers and Partners: Supply Chain Management Tools Offering Visibility, Tracking, and Payment Services (18-Dec-2009)

Enhanced Services for Manufacturers and Partners:

Supply Chain Management Tools Offering Visibility, Tracking, and Payment Services

Overview

Companies providing labeling, RFID, and anti-theft solutions for retail companies may, in some cases, be positioned to also provide additional data tracking and logistic services across the supply chain for improved efficiency over existing services. In some cases, such extended services may move up the supply chain to provide value-added services to manufacturers. These systems can be applied to assist retail vendors in numerous sectors, B2B suppliers, health care providers and associated laboratory services, military supply chains, and so forth.

Introduction

Some companies providing electronic data management services associated with labeling and anti-theft solutions provide means for acquiring inventory or POS data and building databases related to the products and transactions of a partner such as a retail vendor. Such companies can include those offering labeling systems and/or electronic anti-theft products such as tags, labels, etc., that may be read by radio frequency systems including RFID as well as acoustomagnetic resonance, bar codes, 2-D matrix codes and other optically readable labels, and other known digital identification means. We propose that tracking and reading systems currently focused at the final distribution or retail level could be adapted with suitable software and database tools to provide increased visibility to items across the supply chain, thereby enabling manufacturers to better manage their cash flows and inventories, and allowing them to reduce charge backs for errant shipments, late shipments, or other problems. The proposed systems could also provide integrated logistics and quality scorecards to show retailers or other distributors the track record of manufacturers in terms of meeting expectations and contractual agreements. Green scorecards could also be integrated. In some version, the system can also provide for shipment of needed EAS materials, including those from competitive sources.

In one version, the proposed system can be viewed as an EDI-based system to manage supply chains within the supply chain, allowing manufacturers to be aware of product development needs at early stages, allowing logistics providers to understand upcoming shipping needs to pre-allocate containers and other resources, and allowing all parties to have strengthened abilities in developing and manufacturing desired products with the help of a supply-chain system for which fees may be charged (e.g., on a subscription or usage basis). These services can be applied in many fields, ranging from military to retail. Retail supply chains can involve food products, OTC medications, disposable goods, personal care items, items intended to be worn, and the like.