RFID printers help opticians control inventory in real-time

Counting inventory manually is error-prone and time consuming. A complete stock check can take a full business day to complete. As a result, inventory counts or stock checks are often limited to quarterly in well-run practices and as little as once a year in others. Accurate inventory counts are further compounded by ‘shrinkage’ (theft, loss, and breakage).

Most inventory tracking software is not designed to handle multiple eyewear options in business processes like ordering, returns and credits. So, many practices only know what they have at an inventory check, and because they’re so infrequent, they rely on assumptions and guesswork about availability. There are also few software programs that handle inventory easily and accurately for the optical market, and those that do are generally in-house applications written for large chain operations.  

Seeing a better solution in just 10 minutes

While price labels on frames have printed barcodes that support inventory counts, the entire process still needs to be done manually, frame by frame. WaveRFID is a US cloud-based inventory solution for optical stores and medical practices that allows its clients to do inventory counts in just 10 minutes by using radio frequency ID (RFID) labels to track items. 

WaveRFID chose TSC Printronix Auto ID’s T800 RFID enterprise-grade desktop thermal label printer to complement its cloud-base inventory management solution, it enables practices to print and encode RFID labels to put on their frames. 

Having their own RFID printer allows practices to produce labels for their inventory that can be read from a distance of 10 feet or more. This allows opticians to scan their complete inventory in as little as 10 minutes, a fraction of the time it takes to do it manually. Inventory accuracy also increases dramatically, from around 70% to close to 100%.

When opticians receive new frames in store, it’s normally against a purchase order, which is associated with itemised records for each frame in the order. These records can then be converted to labels, one label per record/frame. Each RFID label is encoded by the printer with a unique number that associates the label to the frame and to additional product information stored in a database. Readers can read the unique numbers quickly for an accurate inventory at any time, and individual records can be checked for additional product information if desired.

An additional benefit of the WaveRFID solution is ‘Find my tag’, which enables users to quickly find missing frames by walking the store and searching for a signal from the encoded label.

The WaveRFID solution allows opticians to gather and maintain accurate inventory counts and do them monthly or weekly. This enables them to quickly address any issues that arise like loss, theft and misplacement, and fix the issue, saving significant time and money while improving the overall operation.

"One practice discovered, when it finally did its first full inventory check on our system, that it had $100,000 more in stock than its budgeted plan," said Doug Johnson, Chief Technology Officer at WaveRFID.

"They were able to discount old stock and move it, lowering inventory cost and taxes, and making sure what was in the store is what sells," added Johnson.

The printer

The T800 RFID is a 4-inch desktop thermal printer with a compact footprint. Setup for printing and encoding RFID labels is fast and easy. The automatic RFID label calibration function intuitively finds the chip placement on the label and determines the optimal print and encode position. This printer is ideal for retail and logistics applications for tracking products through the supply chain, taking real-time inventory, and locating equipment within an enterprise.

"The size and price of the printer makes it possible for even small practices to take control of their inventory," Johnson concluded.

For more information, visit tscprinters.com