- ACID property
- Anomaly detection
- Automated KYC
- Batch processing
- Behavioral biometrics
- Cash flow tracker
- Churn prediction
- Cloud data warehouse
- Credit risk
- Customer data platforms
- Customer onboarding
- Customer sentiment analytics
- Customer support KPIs
- Data anonymization
- Data cleansing
- Data discovery
- Data fabric
- Data lineage
- Data mart
- Data masking
- Data partitioning
- Data processing
- Data swamp
- Data transformation
- Digital lending
- Document digitization
- eCommerce KPIs
- ETL
- Experiential retail
- Finance KPIs
- HR KPIs
- Identity resolution
- Insurance analytics
- Inventory audit
- Inventory tracking
- Legacy systems
- Marketing KPIs
- Master data management
- Metadata management
- Mortgage processing
- Order fulfilment
- POS data
- Retail automation
- Retail personalization
- Retail shrinkage
- RFID management
- Risk profiling
- Sales KPIs
- Sales per square foot
- Serverless architecture
- SKU Optimization
- Stock replenishment
- Store layout optimization
- Store traffic
- Text analytics
- Unified commerce
RFID management
What is RFID inventory management?
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) inventory management uses stickers, tags, or chips to identify items in inventory and track their movement across lifecycle. It’s like barcodes stuck on products, but smarter and subtler. Let's understand how RFID-based inventory management works with an example:
1 - Every product in a CPG company is assigned a unique tag.
2 - These tags are read everywhere it passes through—warehouses, slots, fleet, store shelves, etc through RFID readers.
3 - The reader passes this tracking data into inventory systems.
4 - The real-time data of stock levels, movement history, shrinkage, and other status is auto-updated into systems.
Example for the RFID based inventory management: RFID scanner auto-scans the entire stock arrived at the warehouse and flags missing items instantly.
Barcodes vs. RFID for inventory management
Barcodes is a physical unique identification mark that can be scanned only one product at a time. RFID tags are more like microchip, where multiple products can be read at the same time. This is why RFID-based inventories are much better than regular barcodes and manual counting.
1 - Cuts down manual errors, prevents miscounts. 2 - Real-time updates are automatically logged into the system. 3 - No need for line of sight. 4 - Flags whenever there is a potential theft, misplacement, or other anomalies.
Industries and why they need RFID
RFID-based tracking is already a part of many retail and eCommerce companies across the world. Here are other industries that can use them, along with use cases it helps them meet.
Industry | Why they need RFID | Use cases |
Retail (fashion, grocery, luxury goods, etc) | Risk of shrinkage, high SKU volumes, and increasing customer demands. | Stock availability, expiry-sensitive products tracking |
Pharma and healthcare | To track medicines and medical equipment from plant to hospitals and pharmacies. | Hospital asset tracking, shelf-life tracking |
Manufacturing | To track raw materials, assembly components, and manufactured products. | Progress tracking, finished goods tracking, etc. |
Logistics | Need to do warehouse counts, incoming and outgoing stock management, and yard management. | Stock counts, SKU counts, container tracking, and more. |
Fulfilment centers and eCommerce | Too many SKUs, constant movement of goods, and need to do fast-paced pick, pack, and shipping. | Auto-update of product availability on website, stock-out prevention, etc. |
Aviation | Constantly deals with missing luggage and mis-routed cargo | Luggage tagging and tracking, etc. |
Setting up RFID-based inventory tracking system
Here’s how you can turn your inventory into a smart one, enabling it with RFID detection capabilities.
1 - Tag the inventory: It all starts with tagging every unique item with an ID. Something like a digital identification key that’s unique to every product.
2 - Capture data: You will be setting up data capture systems, the RFID reader, at every touch point of your inventory. This will capture the product data, every time it passes through it.
3 - Let the data flow into inventory systems: The captured data will be integrated into the inventory systems like ERP, POS, or WMS systems. No need for manual entries.
4 - The central source of truth: Every item’s lifecycle is tracked and managed in one place now – from timestamps to locations to SKU information. It can be stored with the help of a data warehouse or a lake, which can become the single source of truth for your inventory.
5 - Remove the duplicate data, clean up, and pre-process so you can generate quality insights about shrinkage, sales, and other trends.
6 - Visualize it: With the help of tools like Power BI, Tableau, etc., turn the golden layer of data into charts to understand real-time stock levels, fastest moving SKUs, and more.
Turning analytics to alerts: You can complete the cycle by feeding the insights back into the system. For example, setting up auto-ordering when the stock level falls below the critical value.
Enabling predictive powers to RFID data
You can also build custom AI based models that can analyze and learn from RFID data. Some use cases include:
Demand forecasting -> to predict demand in the future and prepare your inventory accordingly
Shrinkage -> to understand and curb retail shrinkage hotspots and prevent possible losses.
Prioritizing expired-to-be goods -> in case of retail and manufacturing, predict stocks that are about to be expired and minimize losses that happen due to perishable goods wastage.
RFID inventory analysis – is it accurate?
The accuracy of RFID systems depends on how well it is implemented. A typical well-implemented RFID system will yield 85 to 95% of accuracy. Whereas, with manual inventory inspection, the accuracy % will be around 60 to 80% only.
The reason why RFID system accuracy may take a hit include bottlenecks like poor data integration, RFID tag placement, tag quality, etc.
The path from RFID tracking to advanced AI
RFID can track products, but the major mistake many companies does with it is not setting up proper integration, which often leads to errors, blind spots, and missed opportunities. That’s where analytics and AI make the difference. By cleansing noisy RFID signals, connecting them with ERP, POS, and warehouse systems, and building real-time dashboards, businesses get accurate, actionable visibility. AI adds another layer by detecting shrinkage, predicting demand, and even automating reorders or alerts when discrepancies arise. With role-specific dashboards for managers, finance teams, and operations, RFID becomes more than a tracking tool—it transforms into a driver of efficiency, cost savings, and smarter decision-making.
