Wipro Anounces India's First RFID enabled Store

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services division of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT), announced the launch of its RFID enabled concept store at its Electronic City campus. The concept store demonstrates how item level RFID tagging enables automatic check-out, intelligent shrinkage avoidance, smart stock maintenance, and tracing and tracking of apparel by the store manager. The concept store showcases RFID technology being used across different business processes in a retail store and has been launched to help customers understand the working of RFID in a real world environment. The concept store is part of the RFID center of excellence at Wipro Technologies.

The RFID Journal reports the future plan of WIPRO for RFID :

Recently, Wipro developed software that will schedule the correct number of cashiers to meet demand at the Metro Group's RFID-enabled Extra Future Store, in Rheinberg, Germany. Once the software is deployed, which is set to be happen within the next few months, customers can opt to have the bar code on their loyalty card scanned as they enter the store. The software will use those customers' shopping history to calculate when they are likely to reach the checkout register. The software will then assign staff to work the sales terminals so there will always be enough cashiers to meet customer demand, while freeing up staff to do other work when they are not required to process sales transactions.

Wipro maintains that its RFID software and services can be customized from applications that Wipro has already developed. "Products are 70 to 80 percent ready and then customized for individual customer requirements," says Bhanu Murthy, vice president, retail vertical at Wipro Technology, in Bangalore, India.

As an aid to its potential RFID customers, Wipro says it has developed its RFID return-on-investment (ROI) engine-a software program that can calculate the potential costs and returns for companies planning to deploy RFID. "This give a more accurate picture of potential cost than anything so far," says Murthy.

What is RFID ?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a method of remotely storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. An RFID tag is a small object, such as an adhesive sticker, that can be attached to or incorporated into a product. RFID tags contain antennas to enable them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver. More on Wikipedia