Wal-Mart Canada’s deployment of radio frequency identification technology is up and running, with 20 stores and approximately a dozen participating suppliers. The news was announced by Nicole O’Connor, director of the organization’s information systems division, at the opening keynote of the second annual RFID Journal LIVE! Canada conference in Toronto. “And while the scope of Wal-Mart Canada’s RFID deployment is dwarfed by that of its U.S. parent company — which involves more than 1,000 stores and 600 suppliers — that doesn’t mean the technology’s potential impact on the 278-store Canadian chain is insignificant,” the article in RFID Journal points out.

According to O’Connor, Wal-Mart Canada will initially focus on using the RFID technology to eliminate product out-of-stocks. Equipped stores are “reading tagged cases of product moving through its loading docks, as the cases are brought onto and off the sales floors, and as the empty cases are placed into box crushers,” the article states. “In addition, some of the dozen suppliers involved in the RFID implementation are tagging the displays used for showcasing promotional products, to improve visibility into whether the displays are being moved to the sales floor according to schedule.”

O’Connor said in the article that the tags boast a 99.5 percent read rate since the stores began the program this summer. The chain has also seen a 42 percent reduction in manual orders placed by store associates across the 20 stores using RFID, according to Michael Vitalei, Wal-Mart Canada’s RFID strategy manager. He said in the article that reducing manual orders for goods already in stock is an important goal for Wal-Mart, because such orders can lead to overstocks within the stores, as well as generate unnecessary transportation costs and carbon emissions.

However, the technology will truly be put to the test in Canada’s loading docks as the outdoor temperatures drop.