Inventory Vs. Inventory Accuracy
Since the end of 2021, 85 percent of all items in the stores have been equipped with RFID tags. The objective: To increase this number to 100 percent. This also applies to low-cost products. Johan Stenström, Supply Chain Developer and Project Manager, explains why low-cost products are also tagged and why the advantages of an end-to-end RFID-supported supply chain outweigh the disadvantages.
"Prior to 2019, we believed that we had an instore inventory accuracy of 99.5 percent. That was the result of the annual manual inventory in the stores. However, we did not take into account that the inventory result of 99.5 percent did not reflect the inventory accuracy in the store," explains Johan Stenström.
Store managers reported, for example, that employees had to search for items, which shouldn't happen with a 99.5 percent inventory accuracy. Software developed in-house confirmed this assumption. The inventory accuracy was only about 70 percent. This led to the RFID pilot being launched in two stores in Stockholm.