Avery Dennison’s latest supply chain platform wants to drive transparency in day-to-day operations.
Optica is the digital identification provider’s first full-service portfolio of end-to-end supply chain solutions. Intended to address the industry’s traceability troubles, Optica combines radio frequency identification (RFID) smart labels with the Adidas-approved Atma.io connected product cloud platform Avery Dennison dropped last October and some other relevant software, in-field hardware and technical support.
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The resulting system should give factories and brands more insight into their supply chain data, thus refining resilience, optimizing operational control and proliferating profit through this “proactive approach” provision.
Regulatory changes are also addressed with Optica, which can be integrated into digital product passport (DPP) initiatives.
“Lack of visibility costs the industry billions each year and erodes trust between partners and consumers,” said Sergio Shmilovitch, Avery Dennison’s vice president of M&A and solutions. “By connecting the physical to the digital, Optica makes on-demand visibility and real-time data possible, helping brands optimize their operations, reduce their risks and improve their sustainability performance.”
The Materials Traceability solution enables verifiable transparency of upstream supply chains, capturing key attributes in a chain of custody document management system. Users can create a “bill-of-material,” with product origin information and item-level composition details, as well as link transactional documents and compliance certificates along the product journey, the material science company said.
“Materials Traceability combines our hardware, software, labels and professional services to capture upstream traceability data by providing efficient workflows for non-RFID read points,” Avery Dennison said. “It seamlessly integrates each stage of manufacturing into a single, comprehensive cloud-based system, ensuring complete visibility and accountability throughout the supply chain.”
The On-Demand Labeling component helps users “take control” and “build flexibility” to respond to last-minute label changes. The online platform and data management system finds the right balance between ordering labels from a central location and printing and encoding labels on-site.
Packing Verification enables RFID-based carbon content validation, ensuring packing accuracy ahead of its shipment, thus abating handling errors in downstream supply chains to, ultimately, curtail chargebacks.
“It allows factories to finish, pack and validate content against the packing plan to improve accuracy,” Avery Dennison said. “Scan results are consolidated in the Atma.io connected product cloud, where they can be visualized in the factory dashboard to provide a critical traceability read point for goods leaving the factory.”
For retailers seeking reliable order accuracy and tagging compliance, the Inbound and Outbound Verification tool enables automated item-level order accuracy at the warehouse and distribution center. The fully integrated, RFID-enabled operation automates rejections and fixes discrepancies “with a tailored dashboard to increase visibility,” the Levi’s collaborator said.
The more that brands invest in technology-enabled shopping experiences, Avery Dennison found, the more conscientious consumers become, per its study conducted last April. Of noted interest are digital identifiers, which the NBA manufacturer said hold “a great deal of potential in bringing the fashion industry toward greater levels of sustainability and circularity, particularly when products are given a unique identity.”
As digital ID solutions give stakeholders instant access to a product’s supply chain journey while also ensuring compliance with new (and pending) legislation, the traceability tool is “of significant impact when it comes to meeting global environmental goals.”
