The project was implemented at one of the world's largest stainless steel manufacturing company.

1. Case Study
RFID in Inventory – Steel Industry

2. Case Study- Viraj Profiles Ltd.
• One of the largest Stainless Steel Profile manufacturer
• USD 1Bn. Company and exporting to over 80 Countries
• Multiple Manufacturing facilities
• 8000+ employees
• Shipping from multiple warehouses
• Profiles are packed in bundles weighing approx. 0.5 tons
• Bundles are placed at 150+ stacks across warehouse
• Bundles are searched across stacks against orders

3. Operational Characteristics
• Each bundle has unique code assigned and written by hand on it as
per order received from the customer
• Bundles are unloaded and placed randomly as per the space
availability
• Inventory of more than 5,000+ bundles at any time
• Bundles are searched manually
for against each order from the
printed list carried by
employees
• Retrieval is done by over head
cranes and are placed in the
containers for shipping
• Labour intensive search and
retrieval process

4. Goals
• Precise location of all the bundles in the
warehouse
• Faster retrieval of bundles
• Zero mismatch while retrieval
• Faster movement of inventory
• Reduced labour

5. Challenges
• Provide real time visibility of all the stock and
locations in the warehouse
• Precisely locate bundles across the warehouse
• Avoid misshipment

6. Products Used
• Psion Teklogix 7527C- G2 UHF Handheld Readers – 6
Nos.
• UPM RFID Gen 2 wet inlays–20,000 Nos.
• Vicinity RFID – VRIF Middleware for warehouse and
inventory management

7. The Solution
Step 1- Tagging locations
• Zone Creation: Each location is assigned an RFID tag

8. Step 2 -Tagging Bundles
• Every Bundle is tagged with an Gen 2 RFID tag
• Tags are applied upon receiving the bundle at the warehouse
• Each Tag has a serial no. printed on it for visual identification.
• The unique bundle numbers are written on the RFID tags
using handheld RFID readers

9. Step 3 – Inventory Reconciliation
• Location tags are read and bundle tags for
the location are mapped(read).
• The process is carried out at the entire
warehouse
• The process is repeated at periodic intervals.
• Manual inventory took 1 person 12 hours on
paper
• Using RFID it took 1 person 1 hour

10. Step 4 – Synchronization
• Upon docking the handheld reader to the computer, the
VRIF middleware synchronizes the Physical stock details to
the Server
• Any manual entry error during tagging is validated at this
point.

11. Step 5- Generate packing list
• Based on Orders received the packing list
provided by their existing SAP system is now
updated by the VRIF middleware with additional
information like Location details and the bundle
serial no.
• Electronic Proof of Dispatch

12. Benefits
• 99% inventory visibility
• Increase in dispatch by 20%
• High reduction in labour cost
• No mis-shipment
• ROI in less than 6 months

13. Contacts
Vicinity RFID Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
# 312, Building 2, Sector 3,
Millennium Business Park,
Mahape, Navi Mumbai – 400 710. INDIA
Tel: +91 93200 68035/22 2778 0343
email.: vikas@vicinityrfid.com
Web: www.vicinityrfid.com