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Ibiley Uniforms has been providing high-quality uniforms to students, families and schools for over 50 years. They are the leading school uniform provider for the entire United States and serve more than 100,000 students and more than 400 public, private and charter schools across the country.

Ibiley Uniforms, a family-owned school uniform manufacturer based in Miami, Florida, knew that modernising inventory control between their brick-and-mortar retail, online and warehouse locations could help to optimise operations. Ibiley has been serving their community for over 50 years by providing high-quality uniforms to students, families and schools. They are the leading school uniform provider for the entire United States and serve more than 100,000 students across the country.

The seasonal nature of their industry creates a demanding six-week turnaround time in which orders need to be placed and delivered in time for the school season. In a retail landscape in which shoppers expect products to be in stock, on shelves and online (and delivered faster than before), gaining supply chain visibility to capitalise on this annual opportunity is key.

‘If your inventory isn’t correct, you can’t serve your customers,’ said Ibiley co-founder Eddy Barea. ‘The level of time and labour we were investing to complete our daily cycle counts was too much, delaying purchasing and product replacement at a time when shoppers were expecting orders to be fulfilled faster.’

Ibiley knew that RFID technology, together with the implementation experts at Sensormatic Solutions and reseller POSDATA, could help them to achieve the inventory accuracy needed to meet and exceed their customers’ expectations.

Traditional stock counting methods are known to be cumbersome and labour-intensive. Relying on manual methods requires time and labour that could be redirected to higher-value areas such as sales and customer assistance. As a growing business operating on a compressed time schedule, Ibiley was ready to adapt and advance its processes to maintain the company’s edge as a national market leader.

The Sensormatic and POSDATA teams started by providing guidance on the right RFID solutions for Ibiley’s operations. With Sensormatic’s TrueVUE Cloud software in place, security tags and labels compatible with RFID were attached to each product in the uniform distributor’s inventory. Ibiley started source tagging with RFID labels from the factory and enabled exception RFID tagging at the distribution centre in Miami with RFID printers. Ibiley was then able to cycle count at each of the locations, including the warehouse. RFID stocktakes are 26 times faster than those using barcode scanning, because the technology only requires line of sight to work successfully. Ibiley now has accurate item-level inventory data in each location that matches their ERP system.

‘After just two years, we’re already seeing ROI,’ said Barea. ‘The new system allows us to scan products as they arrive and compare them instantly against the packing slips. After factoring in what we’re now saving on time and labour, it’s been a worthwhile investment.’

Ibiley improved their inventory accuracy which helped them to unlock valuable item-level visibility throughout their supply chain.

With products equipped with RFID technology, the company can complete stocktakes quickly and digitally, allowing for seamless updates to be made across retail, warehouse and online systems. Key highlights of the project included:

• Reducing stocktake time from one week to just a few hours
• Saving between £37,000 and £44,000 ($50,000 and $60,000) in labour
• Improving the ability to fulfil orders accurately and on time – each of which is vital for shopper experience, customer satisfaction and business continuity

‘The Sensormatic team was great to work with,’ Barea concluded. ‘They guided us through the entire process and really helped us understand the benefits of all the software, equipment and best practices involved in bringing the implementation to life.’

Having witnessed the many benefits afforded by RFID, Ibiley looks forward to future projects with the Sensormatic team and has provided new ideas for their roadmap, such as built-in integrations to ERP systems, identifying unique items with special configurations and self-checkout features. Like many retailers, they have realised that inventory visibility is just the beginning of what RFID can do for their operations. Umesh Cooduvalli, Sensormatic Business Development Executive, said ‘RFID technology is not only beneficial for large global retailers, but also for smaller regional retailers with fewer than 10 stores... deployment can be quicker in these instances too.’ It is a versatile solution, capable of helping retailers of all sizes to improve inventory visibility and control in order to align with new demands from a changing retail landscape.

Ready to discover how Sensormatic Solutions can help you to improve inventory visibility and accuracy through RFID? Contact one of our solutions experts today to find out how.

Download your PDF copy of the Ibiley Uniforms Case Study.

POSDATA is a leader in the design, integration and implementation of mobile data collection, supply chain management and loss prevention systems for the retail industry. We have been providing innovative technologies to retailers for over 50 years. POSDATA has partnered with Sensormatic to deliver the latest technologies in shopper analytics, loss prevention and RFID-based inventory management solutions to maintain extremely accurate inventories as needed in today’s multi-channel retail environments. Visit us at www.posdata.com.

Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency and decarbonisation, helps customers to use energy more productively, reduce carbon emissions and operate with the precision and resilience required in rapidly expanding industries such as data centres, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing and higher education.

For more than 140 years, Johnson Controls has delivered performance where it really matters. Backed by advanced technology, lifecycle services and an industry-leading field organisation, we elevate customer performance, turn goals into real-world results and help to move society forwards.

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Sensormatic Solutions, the leading global retail solutions portfolio of Johnson Controls, powers safe, secure and seamless retail experiences. For more than 60 years, the brand has been at the forefront of the industry’s fast-moving technology adoption, redefining retail operations on a global scale and turning insights into actions. Sensormatic Solutions delivers an interconnected ecosystem of loss prevention, inventory intelligence and traffic insight solutions, along with our services and partners, to enable retailers worldwide to innovate and elevate with precision, connecting data-driven outcomes that shape the future of retail. Please visit Sensormatic Solutions or follow us on LinkedIn and our YouTube channel.