It is beneficial for companies to read and validate inventory as it leaves the facility or enters a warehouse.  This process eliminates the need for employees to count each pallet or palletized load.  It also enables the organization to validate which pallet is being moved onto which truck – eliminating incorrect product deliveries.

In order to implement an RFID enabled ship validation process or receiving process, a company needs to understand their internal processes and determine which steps can be eliminated or added to ensure efficient product delivery.  A very important part of the process is understanding what data is available and how that data can be viewed or updated.  For example in the receiving process; can we get the purchase order detail record available so that the RFID process “checks off” the received items against the PO?

Most dock door solutions incorporate fixed readers arranged in a fashion so that the antennas’ RF energy engulfs the dock area with limited overlap into the doorway.

The most popular applications for RFID implementations at dock doors are: Ship Confirmations Receiving Asset Tracking KanBan Tracking Compliance Validation

A successful dock door implementation handles “cross reads” well.  The elimination of “cross reads” is accomplished by filtering within the RFID software or using an RFID filtering hardware server.  This filtering process is determined at the time of the implementation and depends on many factors like overlap distance of doors, use of traffic sensors, comparison data available, antenna layout, and staging characteristics.

One thing is for certain in dock door solutions – the hardware and software solution utilized will change from facility to facility.  Different dock doorways have significant RF properties and must be analyzed so that the end result is a “true” read  of product flowing through the read zone.