Bookstore Rolls Out RFIDBookstore Rolls Out RFID

Progress announced a significant breakthrough in remote store automation with the deployment of item-level RFID

April 18, 2006

2 Min Read

SLOUGH, U.K. -- Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), a supplier of leading technology to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, today announced a significant breakthrough in remote store automation with the deployment of item-level RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) in a SOA (service oriented architecture) suite of applications. The deployment for the Netherlands' largest book retailer, Boekhandels Groep Nederland (BGN) will generate dramatic labour savings, reduce inventory reconciliation costs, improve stock control, enhance visibility into supply chain operations, increase shopper 'basket size' and enrich shopper experience. BGN is launching two new, fully-automated 'SmartStores' that combine item-level RFID tagging and SOA to deliver a tightly integrated 'warehouse-to-consumer'

supply chain. The first SmartStore, named 'Selexyz Scheltema*', opens on Tuesday, April 25, in Almere, Netherlands, and the second store opens in Maastricht in October.

Unlike early generation RFID solutions that tag at the pallet or case-level, BGN is using item-level RFID to track the movement of individual books. This provides BGN with unique real-time visibility into both their store inventory and the overall supply chain. BGN is deploying technology from four Progress product lines that deliver this unique retail application:

ProgressR OpenEdgeR as the platform for all transactions processed by the stores, ApamaR ESP for processing the RFID data, Sonic ESBR as the integration backbone for the store automation applications, and ProgressR EasyAsk for natural language access to the application by end users.

"The key to our success is our ability to deliver an outstanding customer experience when a customer enters one of our stores," said Jan Vink, IT Director for Boekhandels Groep Nederland. "Equally important for us is providing the tools to our marketing teams that allow them to better merchandise books. With infrastructure software, ESP (event stream processing), SOA and intelligent search applications from Progress, we have accomplished all of our business goals for this deployment. On top of that, we have built the world's first, fully-automated item-level RFID tagged store. This pioneering set of applications will go far to enhance the strength of the BGN brand with book buyers."

Progress Software Corp. (PSC) (Nasdaq: PRGS)

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