US Air Force Uniforms Tagged with Avery Dennison RFID AD-223 Inlay

Warmkraft, a Mississippi company that applies finishes to military uniforms, has reduced its manual shipping labor costs by 50 percent, while lowering its shipping–error rate down to 0.2 percent from 5 percent, by RFID-tagging its products at the item level after those goods are treated, and by then reading the tags prior to shipment.The system enables Warmkraft to ensure that the correct products are packed in cartons and shipped to the military per each order, and also to send advance shipping notices and receive payment two weeks earlier than was possible without RFID.

Warmkraft began tagging its products destined for the U.S. Air Force USAF) in November 2009, as required by the military agency, and has now expanded the system to its two Mississippi facilities at which uniforms are treated prior to being shipped to the Air Force—as well as, now, the U.S. Marine Corps. The USAF’s item-level RFID deployment was intended to help the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency track the receipt and issuance of uniforms at Lackland Air Force Base’s recruit training center USAF Boot Camp Tracks Boots. Over the next year, says Ron Lack, Warmkraft’s general manager, the company also plans to begin tagging uniforms destined for the U.S. Army.

The U.S. military receives uniforms from Warmkraft after the finishing company provides chemical treatments that include insect repellant, waterproofing and wrinkle proofing. Warmkraft receives uniforms from garment manufacturers, applies the appropriate chemical treatments, and ships the finished clothing to recruiting centers, where they can then be issued to soldiers.

Prior to installing RFID, the firm depended on manual inspections to verify which uniforms were packed in which boxes, and to ensure that no mistakes were made before those cartons were shipped to fill military orders. In addition, regular audits were conducted on boxes just prior to their loading onto trucks, and if any errors were discovered in any of the audited cartons, the entire order would need to be manually inspected for additional errors before it could be transported. Ensuring that the proper items could be accounted for is especially important, Lack says, because the garments belonged to the supplier, and not to Warmkraft.

“We process the goods,” he states. “We don’t own them. If they send us 1,000 garments, we have to account for 1,000 garments.”

With the RFID system, Warmkraft’s employees attach Avery Dennison AD-223 RFID tags to garments or their packaging after they have been processed and are ready for shipment. The company utilizes Zebra Technologies R110Xi printer-encoders to print the ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) passive labels. SimplyRFID provided the Nox software which stores the tag ID numbers of all tags, along with the stock-keeping unit (SKU) of the garments to which they were attached. The uniforms are then packed in boxes and stored within the warehouse for anywhere from one day to a month, while awaiting an order from the military. Once such an order arrives, cartons are removed from storage and placed onto a conveyor that moves the boxed items through two portals constructed using ThingMagic Astra readers. As each item’s tag is read by both portals, the Nox software determines that it is, in fact, a valid tag (and not a stray read), and compares the ID number to ensure that it matches a specific order’s SKU. If the software determines that all tag IDs match the order, a Zebra printer encodes and prints another RFID label that is then attached to the carton and is married to the ID numbers of all goods packed within that box. In the event of a discrepancy, however, a different, non-RFID label, marked “Exception,” is printed using a Zebra 105SL printer, and is then placed on the box, flagging staff members to remove that carton from the order and rectify the problem before moving it back through the RFID system.