Essay on Zara Technologies Overview and Using of RFID by Other Companies

Zara viewed as a technology company has expressed an outstanding performance through the level of technology they have demonstrated into their system. The distribution center involves a warehouse or other specialized building and is usually refrigerated and air conditioned. The specialized building is used for various functions such as storage of goods temporary, receipt, sorting, repackaging and redistribution of goods according to as per customers order.

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Distribution Center

Looking at the distribution studio, there is sorting of product in the correct shipping boxes ready for shipment at the right distribution centers. Also, there are full-size mock-ups of Zara shops that are filled with clothing. The distribution center has online stores, as such, there are various studios where products are photographed. On the hangers, thousands of jacket glide around on carousels along a complicated Scalextric of conveyor belts ready to be supplied as per order. The distribution center also is known as the cube is highly automated which is known to be the heart of the company. Zara distribution center is designed to flow from the wholesalers to retailers, with some products moving to the reseller, and then finally franchise to the final consumers.

Push Verse Pulls Supply

Supply chain defines when products should-should be delivered to various distribution centers and be made available to the retailers. The actual demand of customers drives the process under the pull supply chain while the push strategies are guided by the long-term forecast of consumer demand. Every supply comprises of the two, for example, an organization might decide to stockpile finished products at its distribution Centres to wait for orders that pull them to stores.

Zara technology company which is under Inditex company do not advertise but focus on allowing its operation rather allows its operation to depend on the data that is retrieved from the store and that which collected from in real time. Companies have focused on pushing its products harder to consumers by carrying out intensive advertising, offering discount and special offer. However, Zara has focused on pull supply chain whereby it does not advertise and allows its operations to be pulled along by data collected from its warehouse in real time. For example, it uses qualitative data to identify why they are selling and quantitative to establish the quantity being sold. (Inditex: Agile Fashion Force, n.d.).

Supply Chain

The supply chain is the movement of goods, services and people from one place to another in the distribution channel. Within the supply chain, there are the supplier, distributors retailers among other players. Zara has more that 1500nsuppliers that are located near its distribution centers to ensure that its stores do not run dry. Also, to reach more customer, Zara has street retailers that act as a link to their respective clients and consume 60 percent of its production. The raw materials are part of the supply chain, and in Zara, the raw material pass through distribution centers known as the cube. The cubes are connected to factories by an underground tunnel that has monorails that are capable of moving fabrics to these facilities for dyeing and assembling into clothing items. The same monorail system is used in returning the finished products to the distribution center for delivery to stores.

How Walmart Uses RFID within Its Operations

Walmart is one of the leading retailers in the world, and to achieve this, the organization has focused on each opportunity to rationalize its supply chain and reduce operation cost. To achieve its operation efficiency, the company has implemented various technological advancement and of them is the use of RFID. The organization started by introducing RFID to track pallets of merchandise moving along its supply chain, including merchandise at the warehouses (Ferrell & Hartline, 2013). RFID is used for transferring stored data on tags for identification and tracking purposes. Walmart has used this technology it tracking of customer orders whereby it monitors the movement of a product all the way from the suppliers up to the consumer. Walmart also uses RFID to place tags on individual garments, whereby it offers a wider range of results as compared to traditional barcodes. They keep a lot of data, provide current information and can be scanned from a distance and without a clear line of sight. Additionally, Walmart has grown towards full incorporation of RFID technology, they have experienced some challenges. The first is that inventory must be managed not only by the seller but also by its distributors. That is to say; retailers might want a particular RFID technology and implementation methods, which may ascertain high costs to various suppliers.

How Burberry Is Using RFID in Its Operations

Burberry stores use RFID chips to identify any item picked by a customer through a video that is played on a nearby screen, when the client takes an element to a dressing room, the explicit video to that item will begin playing giving the shopper enough information on the make and design. In Burberry, RFID is also used for tracking goods from the process of manufacturing to distribution chain and inventory management and also tracking assets through marketing applications and consumer-facing branding.

Reference

Alessandra, V. (2017). Advanced Fashion Technology and Operations Management. IGI Global.

Ferrell, O. C., & Hartline, M. (2013). Marketing Strategy, Text, and Cases. Cengage Learning.

Inditex: Agile Fashion Force. (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2017, fromhttps://www.businessoffashion.com/community/voices/discussions/can-fashion-industry-

become-sustainable/inditex-agile-fashion-force