Sonoco-Alcore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sonoco with 30 tube and core plants and six paper mills in Europe, is using UPM Raflatac DogBone RFID tags in its fiber-based cores to help customers reduce costs through advanced inventory tracking.

RFID technology allows Sonoco-Alcore to provide customers the ability to reduce costs associated with lost inventory and manual labour many companies currently use for inventory tracking. By embedding RFID tags in roll cores, customers of Sonoco-Alcore can follow rolls through the supply chain process with real-time tracking and location information. Sonoco is using the technology to produce its Intellicore engineered carriers.

One market already using Sonoco's Intellicore carriers is décor paper. RFID tags are embedded in the cores during the winding process and tested to ensure 100 percent functionality.

“This technology is a value-add to our products that can provide cost savings to our customers. It allows for easy tracking and management throughout the product’s life cycle,” says Eddie Smith, vice president, Sonoco Europe.

"Printing houses can benefit in many ways by using RFID technology. Paper roll traceability at core level enables continuous printing through several phases without losing important paper type and quality information of the material. Material leftovers from the previous run can be re-used for new printing work. In savings this can result in over 10% savings in material costs," says Mikko Nikkanen, business development director, UPM Raflatac, RFID.