Simulating and Evaluating the Impact of RFID on Warehousing Operations: a case study

摘要

Recent advances in information technology have raisedrnthe issue of the extent to which the potential benefitsrngained by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)rnoutweigh the value of investment in such an initiative.rnHence, this has become a matter of considerablernconcern and debate for both practitioners and academicsrnalike. In view of the pre-mature level of RFIDrnimplementation and the analytical difficulties in thernmodeling of RFID deployment, it seems rational tornresort to the technique of discrete event simulation. As arnresult, this paper presents an application of simulationrnto a third-party logistics provider (3PL) in order torndetermine the relative effectiveness of RFID withinrnwarehousing operations (receiving, put-away, picking,rnand shipping). Empirical data has been gathered from arncompany that deals with paper trading and uses its ownrnassets and resources to provide a variety of servicesrn(including provisional warehousing, transportationrnmanagement, distribution management, and freightrnconsolidation) on behalf of other companies. Resultsrnindicate that RFID alleviates the ill effects of manualrnscanning and verification by automating thernwarehousing processes; eliminating errors, the laborrnintervention and the required time to check for anyrndiscrepancies, while increasing the throughput speed ofrnproduct and the inventory accuracy.