Keeping tabs

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 9/1/1998

The number of tracking and tracing products available today means shippers now have a wide variety of options to help them collect, manage, and transmit tracking data more effectively.

Ten years ago, tracking and tracing products were a rarity, but it's a very different story today. The development of operational strategies like Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing, Efficient Consumer Response (ECR), and Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) means that shippers, carriers, and their mutual customers need to know where inventory is at all times. And they need to get that information quickly and

accurately. Fortunately, their needs are being met by a wide variety of tracking and tracing products that are on the market today. Here is just a sampling of some of the newest of these products.

Texas Instruments introduces Tag-it, a new Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) transponder that can be laminated into paper or plastic label, tag, and ticket formats.

Tag-it transponders feature read/write capabilities so that stored information can be updated immediately. In addition, Tag-it products can improve inventory management, speed express parcel delivery, and achieve secure product anti-counterfeiting and documentation authentication, to name just a few of the potential applications.