METRO puts pressure on suppliers over smart electronic tagging (RFID)

Last week, Metro Group invited 600 suppliers to Düsseldorf, Germany, to put more pressure on them about implementing RFID. According to Lebensmittel Zeitung, board members at Metro announced that the usage of RFID will play a role in the coming yearly range reviews.

It has expanded the use of smart tags from its stores in Europe to key producers in China as the German retail giant moves to optimize its global logistics chain as part of a 3 month trial.

By the end of 2007, Metro Group wants to roll-out RFID at pallet level to all its German cash & carry stores and 100 Real hypermarkets. All the nine German distribution warehouses of Metro Group Logistics (MGL) will also start to deploy the technology in the course of this year. Although the retail giant has put a lot of effort into the roll-out of the technology, the number of suppliers delivering pallets with RFID labels is no higher than 40 at the present time, in addition to which, the deployment of RFID at case level is still in a testing phase.

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