W
hen Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, announced last year that its top 100
suppliers will have until January 2005 to become radio frequency identification (RFID)-compliant,
it created quite a stir. Watching the move, Wal-Mart’s competitors started wondering if they should
be looking at implementing this technology to manage their supply chains as well. Within a short
period of time, the buzz surrounding RFID technology soared to a level that some industry experts
liken to the heady days of the 1990s.

As a technology, RFID is nothing new – scientists first started looking into its commercial
applications in the 1970s. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that standards were developed and the
technology bore fruit in its commercial deployment, such as in automatic toll collection on
highways and keyless entry in automobiles. On the other hand, applications in manufacturing such as
in supply chain management  – which is the case with Wal-Mart – only now are being adopted.

Textile World
recently interviewed Marshall Gordon, industry executive for retail, apparel and footwear at
SAP America Inc., Newtown Square, Pa. SAP is a partner in the Metro AG Future Store Initiative,
which was presented at the National Retail Federation Show in January. The initiative has equipped
a store in Germany with a number of technologies, including RFID, to study their potential
commercial applications.




TW
: Why is RFID being implemented now?

Gordon: RFID is not new. The challenge has always been to identify when it is
appropriate to apply the technology to your particular supply chain model. While the costs of many
of the components of a RFID system have come down, the cost of what I call the “disposable
component,” which is the chip itself, is of greatest interest. The price of the RFID tag went from
about $1 each in 2000 to somewhere between 25 cents and 40 cents in 2003. It’s expected to drop
further to somewhere around 5 cents, which seems to be a general target for the next few years. The
prospect of a 5-cent tag makes RFID a compelling option in many consumer product, apparel, footwear
and textile applications.

The other important improvement from a textile standpoint is that the durability of available
tags has greatly improved over the past few years. The high heat and moisture challenges we have in
textile processing are now manageable.

TW
: What are the benefits of RFID?

Gordon: The technology itself offers an opportunity to scan many items
simultaneously because it does not need individual line of sight for each item. Thus, a pallet
arriving in a warehouse with 10 cases is scanned once, reading all 10 cases simultaneously –
including the two in the center of the pallet hidden from the human eye.

Additionally, the ability to store more information on a tag than a bar code enables
application of the electronic product code (EPC) to identify items uniquely, versus just by SKU.
What it is, when and where it was made, and where its components came from are types of information
manufacturers might save on a tag. This information is useful, for example, if you have a recall
situation. Let’s say you are recalling fire-retardant blankets from a store – with RFID tags
attached to the blankets, you know the manufacturer and fabric lot origin of each blanket. A recall
can be targeted – instead of recalling every blanket, you’re only recalling those that truly are
harmful based on their fabric lot origin. The recall is far more effective, less costly; and you
don’t have to clear the shelves of every retailer in every market.

TW
: How does it benefit textile manufacturers?

Gordon: Many opportunities across inventory management, batch management and
logistics exist.

One opportunity with RFID is automating basic tracking of products. Current manual processes
require employees to scan and record data as items move. RFID can help automate this. For instance,
if a pallet of yarn has a RFID tag on it and your forklift has a RFID reader aboard, your driver
has immediate information of the contents of the pallet when he pulls close enough for the reader
to communicate with the tag. Based on that, he knows where that pallet belongs. When it is time to
load a knitting machine with yarn, RFID helps locate the pallet stored in the warehouse, wherever
it may have been moved, and alerts the driver to its current location.

Another benefit is in the area of batch management and quality assurance. For instance, the
possibility of mixing lots of yarn on a knitting machine will be reduced, as you now match a
particular lot of yarn with the knitting machine and the production order. The reader on the
knitting machine will alert the operator if yarn entering its perimeter is incorrect.

Finally, the logistics benefit comes from automating the manifest as a container is being
loaded. As a roll of fabric passes through the RFID-enabled dock door to the truck, that roll is
automatically added to the manifest. If you were to have the truck pass through a second canopy on
the way out of the yard, you can again match what’s on the truck with the manifest.

TW
: What should suppliers do to prepare for implementation?

Gordon: Avoid the hype – there’s a lot of interest and a lot of misinformation and
hype out there. It’s very critical that the first goal for everyone is education. There is plenty
of material to help you learn, stay up to date and understand what’s going on.

Build the internal business case – every company is somewhat unique, and you must understand
how RFID contributes to your specific processes.

Remember, technology is the enabler – your processes must be your focus, and you must be able
to take advantage of what the technology offers.

TW
: How difficult is it to implement RFID?

Gordon: It’s a matter of having the proper expectations, and allowing enough time
for disciplined testing and piloting of the technology – don’t wait until you’re forced to do
something and scurry around paying for it. Implementation is not overly complex, but it’s
engineering – there’s an awful lot of physics involved from the standpoint of testing conveyor belt
speeds and reader fields of overlap, determining the distance between readers and how pallets are
tagged, and so on.

TW
: How do suppliers know if the investment will pay off?

Gordon: As I mentioned already, you need to roll up your sleeves and take a
critical look at your business to understand what can be improved and what that is worth. Also,
watch the folks ahead of you who are investing. For Wal-Mart to enable its facilities, the amount
of money it spends will be enormous; I think they’re going to be pretty serious about it and have
done some pretty significant due diligence. Go slow if you can, but as you watch your supply chain
and others in the industry go down that path, I think you’d be foolish to not have some
understanding of what they’re doing and why. At least have an understanding of your future target.

April 2004

T
extiles and Turkey are interwoven in history. The Silk Road, which Marco Polo so famously
traversed, cuts through parts of the country, which has a long history in textile production.
Today, textiles contribute to about 33 percent of Turkey’s total exports – generating about $10.3
billion in 2001, according to the Export Promotion Center of Turkey’s Undersecretariat of the Prime
Ministry for Foreign Trade (IGEME).

With the availability of good-quality cotton, cotton yarn and fabric production are among the
most important textile activities in modern-day Turkey. According to IGEME, estimated 2001 cotton
yarn production in the country was 893,000 tons, and estimated cotton fabric production was 1,590
million meters. The value of cotton, cotton yarn and cotton fabric exports added up to more than
$840 million that year.

A Brand-New Plant


In March 2003, installation of a brand-new spinning plant began in a 15,000-square-meter
covered area in Tekirdag, a city not far from Corlu, one of Turkey’s largest textile centers west
of Istanbul. Yarn production began three months later. Today, the plant employs approximately 80
people and churns out an average of 18 tons of cotton and rayon yarns every day.

The spinning complex, named iPOND, is part of Yumak Iplik Tekstil Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., a
textile manufacturer headquartered in Istanbul. Yumak Iplik was founded in 2002 by two families
that have been in the textile business for more than 20 years.

iPOND also is the trademark under which the company markets its yarns, which range from Ne 16
to Ne 30 in yarn count. According to the company, the majority of its yarns are sold to Turkish
export knitters. In addition, some of the yarns are used by Yumak Iplik’s new knitting plant, which
was completed in December 2003. The company also plans to add a ring-spinning line to its
operation.

Technology Investments


iPOND may not be the largest spinning mill in Turkey, but it easily is one of the most
advanced in technology installation.

The plant is equipped with an open-end (OE) spinning system made by Switzerland-based Rieter
Machine Works Ltd. According to Melih Günugur Hasircilar, one of Yumak Iplik’s owners, a decision
was made early on to install machinery supplied by one source. “At the time when one first goes
into production, the responsibilities must be clear. A solution with various suppliers would have
meant that we had to find out ourselves which machine had what influence on a production error,”
Hasircilar said. “Thanks to the ‘everything from one source’ solution, we have gained additional
security.”

Fiber Preparation


iPOND’s blowroom line includes a Rieter A 11 bale opener, a Rieter B 11 pre-cleaner, two
Rieter B 70 mixing units and two Rieter B 60 fine cleaners with A 20 condensers. In addition, there
are seven Rieter C 60 cards set up in a modular construction to reduce resetting time to a minimum.

According to Rieter, benefits of the C 60 include high production rates and improved quality
and flexibility.

For the drawing process, iPOND decided to use two drawing passages – a Rieter RSB-D 35 draw
frame and a Rieter RSB-D 15 draw frame. According to Rieter, the additional dust removal the RSB-D
provides leads to higher efficiency during spinning. Moreover, the improved parallel alignment of
the fibers results in improved yarn quality and characteristics.

Rotor Spinning


Ten Rieter R 40 OE spinning machines are set up to manufacture yarn packages with diameters
of up to 340 millimeters and weights of up to 5 kilograms. Rotor speeds can reach 150,000
revolutions per minute.

The R 40 uses Rieter’s SC-R spin box, which integrates piecing and package change in a robot
assembly. According to Rieter, an optimized take-off angle facilitates reduction in yarn twist,
while maintaining spinning stability and increasing delivery speed by 5 percent.

All yarns then are conditioned using a Condimat conditioning machine made by Germany-based
Ph. Welker GmbH. A final phase of quality control is conducted under ultraviolet light to detect
foreign fibers.

iPOND also has integrated Rieter’s SPIDERweb mill monitoring system into its production lines
to provide plant personnel with instant access to production and quality data.

Knitting Line


Yumak Iplik recently added a new knitting operation to the iPOND complex. The knitting
operation features VXC-3S circular knitting machines from Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp.

Because the knitting facility is so new, Hasircilar said the company has yet to set any
production capacity or goals for the plant. “It also depends on the economic consumption in Turkey
and in Europe,” he said.

March 2004