Provia Software, a provider of supply chain execution software solutions, announced that its ViaView event/alert management and decision support product can play a key role in offering visibility to supply chain data for companies supplying RFID-tagged products to Wal-Mart and other retailers.
Wal-Mart's top suppliers will be providing the retail giant with RFID-tagged cases and pallets as part of a mandated pilot project beginning in January 2005. Wal-Mart will use RFID to track products at the case and pallet level within its supply chain.
Wal-Mart suppliers have been searching for ways to leverage their RFID investments within their own organizations. Wal-Mart has recently offered to supply information back to its suppliers regarding the status of RFID tagged products as they progress through Wal-Mart's supply chain. Users of Provia's ViaView event management product will be able to capitalize on this feedback and derive value immediately.
"In the past, companies have not been able to track their products after they arrived at one of their customer's distribution centers," said John Pulling, vice president and chief operating officer for Provia. "Provia's ViaView fills that void, giving Wal-Mart suppliers immediate visibility to this information and, using ViaView's performance analysis framework, the ability to extract value from the Wal-Mart feedback."
With ViaView, a supplier company will know the turn time of products at every step and can be notified if something out of the ordinary happens throughout the supply chain.
"Suppliers to Wal-Mart and others leveraging RFID will now have a better idea of how long their products spend at each stage of the retail supply chain," added Pulling. "This information is key to reducing the overall amount of material in the supply chain while still meeting the stringent demands of retail customers.” Suppliers will be able to track and monitor the status of products in the Wal-Mart supply chain at a very detailed level.
