Title: Service performance improvement by using RFID-enabled goods traceability data: a case study

Authors: T. Inaba, S. Miyazaki

Addresses: Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, 5322 Endo, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-8520, Japan. ' Strategic Business Division, NCR Japan, Ltd., 1-21-2 Shinkawa, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0033, Japan

Abstract: This paper presents a case study where service performance of a retailer can be improved not by directly measuring the service performance and solving problem; but by measuring a substitute performance indicator that corresponds to the service performance and solving the problem. As a substitute indicator, we choose a correlation coefficient between sold item distribution and sales floor inventory distribution. Since measuring service performance continuously in stores has lots of difficulties because of the nature of services, the services of the retailer have been difficult to improve. However, since the move of goods inside a store is captured easily by using automated data capturing (ADC) technologies, the service performance could be continuously improved if the goods traceability data is used for this purpose. In this study, we show the effectiveness of our approach with a radio frequency identification (RFID) application in a men|s business shirt store of a department store.

Keywords: service performance measurement; radio frequency identification; RFID; automated data capture; retail industry; retailing; supply chain management; SCM; performance improvement; goods traceability; retailers; substitute indicators; correlation coefficients; sold items; sales floors; inventories; distribution; department stores; shops; clothing; business shirts; menswear; Takashimaya; Japan; intellectual capital; service productivity; services management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2010.035781

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2010 Vol.14 No.4, pp.310 - 325

Published online: 04 Oct 2010 *

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