Peter Franklin Jewelers selects Northern Apex for RFID integration

In 2005 American consumers spent $59.4 billion buying jewelry and watches, posting a dramatic 10.2 per cent two-year growth trend. As a category in the durable goods segment, jewelry and watches outperformed the overall durable goods sector, which only rose 8 per cent in the same two-year period. This level of increasing sales has created a demand for improved inventory management systems in an ever increasing competitive market. Keeping track of this inventory, which is typically required on a daily and or weekly basis may just have gotten a little easier.

Northern Apex has recently announced that it has been chosen by Indiana, US-based Peter Franklin Jewelers, direct diamond and colored gemstone importer, to incorporate item-level RFID inventory management tracking for their retail stores. 

Peter Franklin Jewelers, established in 1988, will begin tagging its custom manufactured jewelry, collectables and watch inventory with paper thin, 0.5" mini 13.56 MHz HF RFID tags. The Northern Apex RFID solution will help Peter Franklin more efficiently and accurately track and inventory its large assortment of designer and signature collection jewelry. Eventually all items will have a tag attached to the box or the item itself.  The Northern Apex integrated RFID tags, readers, and antennas will allow Peter Franklin to take inventory significantly quicker and more accurate on a daily, weekly or as often as needed basis, without wasted time handling each piece or item individually.

‘Using RFID is going to help free up our store personnel to focus more attention upon the customer needs,’ said president Pete Ball.

‘Peter Franklin Jewelers is a well respected establishment with multiple stores requiring constant inventory management. Their willingness to adapt new technology and their efforts to be an innovative industry leader matches very well with our anticipated product plans,’ said Northern Apex General Manager Mike Gigli.

‘We believe the RFID package of readers, tags and software will help jewelry stores save countless hours spent doing inventory, thus freeing up store personnel to better care for the customer. For nearly a decade, Northern Apex has developed a reputation for innovation, customer focus and value providing RFID integrated components, engineered solutions and complete RFID turnkey systems,’ added Gigli. ‘The net result of implementing our inventory solution will allow the jewelry store operations to perform regularly scheduled inventory checks as well as to reduce time required to perform pre-open and post-close inventory status and vault storage tasks.’ 

The use of RFID requires close proximity thus not requiring direct ‘line of sight’ as such technologies as barcode require. ‘We can scan an entire case or specifically a complete tray of jewelry in a manner of seconds with our specifically designed case RFID wands,’ added sales executive Matt Foreman of Northern Apex. ‘This allows the inventory to be performed more frequently, quicker and without handling each piece individually.’

‘Peter Franklin expects to expand this technology to all stores by the end of 2007,’ added Ball.