Katerina Pramatari

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RFID Applications in Retail Stores Lessons
Learnt towards the Internet of Things

• Katerina Pramatari
• k.pramatari_at_aueb.gr
• Assistant Professor, SMART project scientific
  coordinator
• Research Group, Athens
  University of Economics Business
• This research has been partly funded by the
  European Commission (IST-2005, FP6) through the
  SMART research project (www.smart-rfid.eu)

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THE SMART RESEARCH PROJECT
Intelligent Integration of Supply Chain Processes
and Consumer Services based on Unique Product
Identification in a Networked Business
Environment (EU FP6 ST-5-034957-STP)

• RFID-enabled in-store services and supply-chain
  collaboration
• 30 months 11/2006 6/2009
• Partners ELTRUN-AUEB, Intrasoft Intl., Cambridge
  Auto-ID Labs, Trinity College Dublin, Cyberce,
  WHU, Veropoulos, Alpha-Mega, Superquinn

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SMART RFID APPLICATIONS IN RETAIL STORES

• Promotion Management (PM) Service
• Pilot in Greece, Cyprus
• Users Veropoulos Retailer, Alpha-Mega
  Papaellinas Retailer, Rilken Schwarzkopf
• Hair care, BathShower
• Dynamic Pricing (DP) Service
• Pilot in Ireland
• Users Superquinn Retailer
• Minced meat

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PROMOTION MANAGEMENT SERVICE

• Inventory and out-of-stock monitoring of products
  on promotion stand in the store
• Performance evaluation of in-store promotion
  activities by monitoring shelf and stand sales
• Item-level RFID tagging
• Limited deployment of RFID hardware in the store
  to make this an economically-viable service

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DYNAMIC PRICINGSERVICE

• Reduce price of products approaching expiration
  date
• Shelf and backroom stock availability per
  expiration date
• Sales performance and daily replenishments
• Dynamic price change recommendation
• Consumer service information about dynamic price
  change

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SMART PILOT STUDIES
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Readability challenges

• LESSONS LEARNT

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THE SMART PROMOTION STAND

• RFID Implementation Challenges
• Hidden RFID infrastructure
• Liquid products
• Metal shelves
• 100 readability was achieved
• Antenna topology
• Specific items per shelf

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DP RFID IMPLEMENTATION IN THE STORE
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LESSONS LEARNTReadability Challenges

• Multipath-effect, environmental conditions, tag
  collisions, antennas orientation, liquid items,
  wireless network etc.
• Site Implementation analysis
• Laboratory experiments, on-site testing for
  item-level visibility
• Integrate the RFID infrastructure with the
  operational environment ? customized
  infrastructures

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Data Management and INFORMATION QUALITY

• LESSONS LEARNT

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PM TOPOLOGY OF RFID READERS
Requirement Limited RFID Infrastructure
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DP TOPOLOGY OF RFID READERS
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LESSONS LEARNTInformation Quality

• Missing reads, multiple consequent reads,
  connectivity problems, faulty interpretation of
  object movements
• Identification of business exception events
• EPC events are associated with business events
• Introduce State Management Module in the SMART
  RFID architecture

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INTERACTING WITH THE CONSUMER

• LESSONS LEARNT

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PM FUNCTIONALITY TO CONSUMERS

• Interaction with the system via a touch screen
  placed on a shelf of the promotion stand offering
  three options
• Product Information
• Find the appropriate product
• Select gift

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DP CONSUMER SERVICE
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PM FUNCTIONALITY TO RETAILERS-SUPPLIERS
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DP FUNCTIONALITY TO RETAILER Price Change
Recommendation
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LESSONS LEARNTInteracting with the Consumer

• Dynamic interaction with the consumer (e.g. as
  the consumer picks-up the product, a message is
  automatically presented on the screen) was NOT
  achieved
• A major technical limitation
• 5-10 seconds delay caused by RFID middleware
  filtering
• further delay introduced to cope with business
  exception events
• A KEY CHALLENGE for IOT!

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SMART ARCHITECTURE
RETAILER
RETAILER
SMART Central Services
Service Repository
Object Directory
Partner Registration Provisioning
PM
DP
UI
Orchestration Engine
OIIS
Insert Product information
SUPPLIER
PM
DP
Orchestration Engine
Local DP
Local PM
OIIS
DSMS
WS-Wrapper
Local DP
Local PM
Legacy Systems
WS-Wrapper
Legacy Systems
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RFID ARCHITECTURE
Application Logic
State Management Module
Relational Database
Data Stream Management System
RFID Middleware
RFID Reader
Low Level Reader Protocol
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FURTHER CONSUMER INSIGHTS

• LESSONS LEARNT

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CONSUMER STUDIES

• Two rounds of Consumer Surveys
• April-May 2007 and 2008
• Greece, Ireland
• gt 1.400 questionnaires
• Experiment with
• Level of technology interaction
• Visibility of RFID (tags, notification)
• RFID attribution

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THE CONSUMER PERSPECTIVETechnology Contact
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THE CONSUMER PERSPECTIVERFID Awareness
Have you heard of RFID before?
N 365
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THE CONSUMER PERSPECTIVERFID Visibility
Did you take notice of RFID tags and RFID
notification?
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THE CONSUMER PERSPECTIVERFID Attributions
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THE CONSUMER PERSPECTIVEDo you mind?
Do you mind if products have RFID tags on?
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CONSUMER ATTITUDE TOWARDS RFID-ENABLED SERVICES
(Pramatari Theotokis, EJIS, Forthcoming)
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• Further information
• www.smart-rfid.eu
• k.pramatari_at_aueb.gr