The best way to deal with spoiled inventory is to prevent it from spoiling.
In North America alone, billions of dollars of food spoils before reaching customers each year. In the pharmaceutical industry, temperature-sensitive products are regularly damaged due to inappropriate shipping and storing conditions. It is no secret that inventory spoilages directly affect a business’s bottom line and customer service level. The good news is that with smart inventory-management solutions, enterprises can monitor the location and storage environment of perishable inventory to minimize spoilage and associated financial losses.
RFID and IIoT: shelf-lifesavers
Food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, nanomaterials and other products with limited shelf life require constant location traceability and storage-environment monitoring. To gain better visibility into the location and the condition of perishable inventory items, businesses can turn to RFID and IIoT technologies.
Let’s explore:
RFID
RFID technology enables the digital data encoded in RFID tags to be transmitted to an RFID reader via radio waves. There are passive and active RFID tags. Passive tags require power from an RFID reader, while active tags have their own power source, which enables them to constantly broadcast the radio signal. For tracking perishable inventory, it is reasonable to use passive RFID tags—they are smaller, thinner, more flexible, and have a considerably lower price.
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