Global fashion retailer KOOKAÏ has cut inventory counts from a few days to 30 minutes as a result of implementing RFID from Avery Dennison at its manufacturing facilities in Fiji and Sri Lanka.

The project is at the heart of the KOOKAÏ omnichannel strategy: ultimately, all clothing and stores will be equipped with rfid , enabling it to precisely track all items within its supply chain, speed up check out times, enable online orders to be fulfilled from local stores and provide consumers with extra information about the products they enjoy via new interactive experiences.

KOOKAÏ has tagged all the garments it manufactures with an integrated RFID Printed Fabric Label (PFL) catering for multiple languages. In partnership with Sensormatic Solutions TrueVue Cloud plaform, Avery Dennison has been able to offer a RFID solution that is able to capture and manage the item level data, enabling the brand to track the inventory process from production to quality control and then to finished goods.

This has delivered dramatic productivity improvements. At the Fiji factory, KOOKAÏ data indicates that 30,000 items can be counted in just 30 minutes – a process which used to take a few days. KOOKAÏ is also experiencing benefits in store by reducing its out-of-stocks and gaining visibility into inventory levels so that re-stocks can be increased ahead of time for fast selling items.

“We wanted to remove any customer dissatisfaction due to out-of-stock items or missed sales due to inventory not being accurately represented in our stock file,” Amelia Adey, loss prevention and compliance manager at KOOKAI Australia, said. “Stocktakes can be done daily now instead of on a twice yearly basis which enables us to provide accurate stock updates to our customers in real time. Having control over the majority of our supply chain due to owning our own factories, made the implementation of RFID an obvious choice in achieving these goals.”

KOOKAÏ produces most clothing in their own factories and has full control over tagging items at the manufacturing site. The next phase of the project is underway to extend visibility even further to its remaining suppliers which will also tag each item.

“By digitizing the stock receipting process we can eliminate the need for manual counting of deliv-eries, leaving our sales assistants free to put the focus back on the customers rather than administration,” Adey added.

Future stages of this project include integration into the KOOKAÏ point of sale system, so barcodes are replaced by RFID at the till, completing transactions in seconds with no scanning required.

KOOKAÏ is also exploring the possibility of RFID readers in the changing rooms to provide further customer service, and to collect metrics on product sell through. Longer term, KOOKAÏ is as-sessing the use of RFID to enhance the traceability of its production and raw materials and to be able to convey its ethics and sustainability story to its customers.

“This is an exciting project to be part of,” Uwe Hennig, director, global RFID market development at Avery Dennison Smartrac, said. “KOOKAÏ is looking to implement RFID at every stage of its production, supply chain and retail experience. Already we have seen the dramatic gains from in-ventory visibility but as this progresses, we look forward to helping them make further improvements as we capture and analyze more and more data that comes with digitizing its operations.”