))) Marks & Spencer Creates RFID Supply Chain for Refrigerated Foods Using Texas Instruments and Intellident Technology

UK retailer replaces bar codes with low-cost smart labels to track more than 3 million items

))) DALLAS, TX (May 7, 2002)

Texas Instruments Radio Frequency Identification (TI-RFid™) Systems today announced that UK retailer Marks & Spencer is replacing existing barcodes with a TI RFID-based electronic tagging system. Using TI-RFid™ Tag-it™ smart labels, systems integrator Intellident will create a system to track almost 3.5 million reusable trays, dollies and roll cages used throughout the store's refrigerated food supply chain.

TI's RFID technology will provide Marks & Spencer with a significant cost and speed advantage in tracking and managing its refrigerated food products. During Marks & Spencer's extensive trials of electronic smart labels, the TI tags reduced the time taken to read a stack of multiple trays by approximately 80 percent, compared with bar coding. A complete dolly with more than 25 trays can be scanned in a single pass through a portal in just 5 seconds with high accuracy and reliability - compared with 29 seconds for conventional barcode scanning.

More than 70 percent of Marks & Spencer's food business is in refrigerated fresh foods. Its supply chain needs to be very fast since the majority of its items are ordered at 6 a.m. and delivered the next day beginning at 7:30 a.m.

"We're implementing a faster, more cost-effective supply chain management system by electronically tracking our refrigerated foods all the way from production to purchase," said Keith Mahoney, logistics controller, Marks & Spencer. "The successful implementation of this system will not only improve our supply chain efficiency, but it will also cut administration costs, and give us about an extra hour's leeway to have goods delivered."

Intellident, a UK systems integrator that specializes in data tracking with barcodes and smart labels, is leading the 3-year effort to replace Marks & Spencer's barcode systems with RFID tags and portable and fixed multi-scanners/portals. Linpac Materials Handling is managing a 2½ year program to attach the smart labels to all chilled food trays as they are manufactured. Intellident also designed special multi-tag reading portals that can read complete pallet loads, dollies, and stacked roll cages simultaneously and without line of sight in a fraction of the time it takes with conventional scanning.

"For this application, international standards were important and we chose TI's Tag-it™ smart labels because TI has led the way with the industry's first fully ISO 15693 approved products," said Jim Hopwood, managing director, Intellident.

In addition to compliance with international standards, other advantages of the RFID system include faster, more accurate scanning and data capture, simultaneous read, lower labeling costs, and more efficient communication throughout the entire supply chain. Electronic tags are reusable and their fixed costs can be spread over a long period of time, whereas barcodes are used once. Marks & Spencer estimates the capital cost of an RFID system will be less than a tenth of the annual cost of using barcodes.

For more information call 1-888-937-6536 or visit the TI-RFid™ Web site at www.ti-rfid.com.