Results: RFID and Identity Management in everyday life - ITAS

Case ID # 35 , level 2
Title Selexyz Scheltema SmartStore
Researcher Jessica
Case # 35: Selexyz Scheltema SmartStore
Timing April 2006 - present
Geography The Netherlands (Almere)
Setting Shopping
Environment Bookstore (warehouse-to-consumer supply chain)
Technology Rafsec ‘Shortdipole2’ UHF passive RFID tags by UPM Ralflatac, readers by CaptureTech and
software applications by Progress. This provides a total back-office system called Atlas. The
software system consists of Progress OpenEdge platform, Apama Event Stream Processing,
Sonic Enterprise Service Bus), Progress EasyAsk [1, 12, 16].
Maturity Operational
Function Tracking and Tracing of products
Owner Selexyz Bookstore (formerly Boekhandels Groep Nederland (BGN))
Maintainer Progress Software Corporation
Users Suppliers, customers and clerks of the bookstore
Other actors - UPM Raflatac > supplier of tags [6]
- Progress Software Corporation > design of software [7]
- CaptureTech > supplier of readers [8]
- 3Com > wireless components [9]
- Centraal Boekhuis > supplier of books [10]
Case story The system was introduced to reduce costs in labour, to improve stock control, to make the
supply chain more transparent, to increase purchases and to enrich customer experience. Itemlevel
tagging does not only serve the store in streamlining the supply chain and inventory
management, it also serves the customers through specially designed information kiosks in
providing information on the whereabouts of a book and in offering the possibility to place
orders [1, 3].
Selexyz is planning to introduce RFID in a second store in The Netherlands later in 2006 and in
the future even in more of its 42 stores in the country [2, 5, 13, 15].
Approximately 38,000 items are tagged. In their leaflet, the store claims that only productinformation
is stored on the chip. [3, 14, 17]
An employee places an unopened box with RFID tagged books into an RFID ‘tunnel’, which is
equipped with a reader. This checks the tags against an electronic record of an advanced
shipping notice forwarded earlier over the Internet by Centraal Boekhuis. If there is a
discrepancy, the system automatically sends an alert to rectify the order. Checked-in books are
placed on store shelves and other displays, with their exact location scanned by employees
with handheld RFID scanners. This gives clerks and customers an instant look at a book’s
exact location as well as its availability. Besides this, the RFID technology enables the store to
check inventory more often [4, 11, 12].
The company made several measures as to prevent negative developments. The ICT manager
of the store said this was done intentionally; ‘in this stage we restrict ourselves to productinformation
solely, because of possible privacy issues.’ They proclaim not to link purchase
information with specific customer information and when a book is bought, the chip is
deactivated by store personnel. [16, 18].
In an interview with the ICT manager it became clear that the RFID environment is still under
construction. There are plans to extend some applications further in the near future, mainly that
of security and stock replenishment. It appears that these plans will have no consequences on
privacy. Mr. Vink also mentioned to be considering the development of other applications in the
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