Using bar codes saves New Zealand households $20 a week, says economist Brian Easton. Photo / AP
Using bar codes saves New Zealand households $20 a week, says economist Brian Easton. Photo / AP
KEY POINTS:
The bubbly was broken out in Auckland last night to celebrate one of the country's most esoteric anniversaries.
Yet it was an event that economist Brian Easton estimates saves New Zealand households $20 a week.
The occasion, in the Grand Tearoom of the Heritage Hotel, marked 30years since the introduction of bar codes by the New Zealand Product Numbering Council.
Easton says improved supply chain efficiency brought about by bar codes means the goods we buy are $280 cheaper per year per person, a number he came up with by analysing an overseas PricewaterhouseCoopers study.
Potentially even greater benefits are within reach through adoption of the successor to bar codes, radio frequency identification, or RFID. But New Zealand organisations are taking their time implementing the electronic tracking method.
Gary Hartley, secretary of the Pathfinder Group, whose mission is to promote RFID use within New Zealand, says there are local examples of successful RFID implementation.
But despite the technology having its origins in World War II, when it was used for distinguishing Allied aircraft from enemy ones, most organisations remain in a "watch and learn" phase.
The Warehouse conducted a trial in 2006 and, although it saw an RFID business case for tracking apparel, the project "came to a grinding halt" when two key staff left the company.
"It's not a bad strategy to watch and learn," Hartley says, "but there needs to come a time when the watching stops and you get some skin in the game".
Te Puke kiwifruit packhouse EastPack has got on with it and, after spending $500,000 to $600,000 on the technology "its implementation is now driving the business", Hartley says.
Organisations that want to see what RFID has to offer - namely, the ability to see what's happening in their supply chain in real time - can do so for as little as $3000 to $4000, Hartley says.
