Edson Perin
Camboriu has stood out in the market in relation to its competitors for prioritizing quality in finishes, in innovative modeling and design, raw material with technology and innovations. This is the definition given by the partner-director of the company, Edjane Nunes de Araújo. Located in Santa Cruz do Capibaribe (PE), the industry produces and distributes products to stores. “We also make sales through the website, application and representatives”, says Edjane.
For years the company had been using bar code readers, reading individual products. “Now we have radio frequency identification (RFID) that reads faster than bar codes, reading up to 300 units at once, streamlining our process of checking batches and sales,” she says.
RFID implementation follows GS1 standards, with benefits such as printing, movement, inventory control, process precision and product safety. The readers are installed in portals “metal boxes” and reading tables, with three equipment in the factory and two in two stores.
“We place the products inside the portals that – through the integration of iTAG [the company responsible for implementing the RFID systems] – make a quick reading of the inserted items”, explains Edjane. The tags in use are from Tecnoblu and the adhesive labels with RFID chip from iTAG, and each product contains a tag and an adhesive label. Tags and labels are incorporated into the product at the time of production and continue to reach the final consumer.
iTAG’s RFID solution is fully integrated with the electronic management system (ERP) provided by Webpic; the database is in the cloud. “We started [the implementation] in the warehouse with the tags that arrive from the iTAG with an internal chip, and we put our information on them. Example: reference, color, size, then we check on the table reader if they are all being read correctly, we put them in the packages that go to sewing, when they arrive in the finishing they are pasted on the tags and sent to the factory stock for distribution to stores , customers and e-commerce”, he clarifies. “The agility and precision in the counting met our expectations”.
According to Edjane, the biggest challenges of the project occurred when it came to putting the labels on all the pieces that were already in stock. “We had to open packages and put them in all of them,” she explained. “There was also a whole change in the sales process and way of reading the portals and the R3 table, so we had to train the whole team. To this day, we still learn new things every day.”
The general benefits obtained with the system, in the opinion of Camboriu’s director, were the speed of sales, wholesale; speed in checking third-party products, either at entry or exit; inventory speed; and security in the sales process.
Edjane stated that the company is currently in the process of completing the implementation of new equipment to improve services. “Our idea for the future is to be able to take advantage of the resources that RFID offers, such as monitoring our products in our customers’ stores, being able to advise on replacement, see the turnover of products, etc.”
Middleware tasks involve managing readings and movements, data organization. Development and supply were the responsibility of the Pernambuco branch of iTAG, under the responsibility of project analyst Orlando Henrique, who installed all the equipment, in addition to helping to train the entire team in the industry and stores.
The first contact with RFID was made by a company executive. “The commercial manager saw the system working in a store in our region, talked to the store manager who provided the iTAG contact, we talked to the company and started the acquisition”, says Edjane. “The implementation of RFID was a positive experience for the company, and the challenges were investment and team training”.
