Handheld reader maker Chainway has published a case study describing how the fast-fashion chain H&M runs a single scanner at the checkout counter that reads both UHF RFID tags and printed barcodes, and claims the change cut checkout time by up to 80 per cent against a barcode-only till.
H&M, formally Hennes & Mauritz, is the Swedish retailer that is one of the largest apparel chains in the world by store count. It has been shifting to RFID-tagged stock for years: GS1 UK records a 2018 rollout across 1,800 stores in 12 markets, with more planned for 2019, while noting that H&M has never published the results of those trials. Shenzhen Chainway Information Technology is a Chinese manufacturer of RFID readers, handheld computers and data-capture hardware.
The problem is the halfway point, not the endgame
The difficulty Chainway describes will be familiar to any retailer partway through a tagging programme. H&M stores handle a mixed estate of stock. Most apparel carries a UHF tag, but some items are still barcode-only, and tags in the field get damaged, obscured or torn off. Handling both conventionally means two devices on the counter, two workflows for the cashier and a transaction that can stall when a tag will not read.
Chainway names three pressures behind the deployment: the hybrid item environment itself, queue congestion at peak trading hours caused by item-by-item barcode scanning, and the continuity risk of relying on RFID alone when a tag is unreadable.
What the SR160 actually is
The SR160 is a desk-format scanner built around Chainway’s own UHF module. Chainway’s published specification lists support for the EPCglobal Class 1 Gen 2 air interface, also known as ISO 18000-6C, plus Impinj’s proprietary Gen2X extensions, an adjustable read range of 7 cm to 100 cm with 30 cm given as the recommended working distance, and USB, RS-232 or Bluetooth connection to a host. It is supported on Windows, Linux and macOS.
Impinj’s own write-up of the device, published in May 2023, identifies the reader chip as the E310 and describes the practical point of the design: the scanner toggles between three modes, barcode only, RAIN RFID only, or hybrid, at the push of a button rather than through a software change. If you are new to the terminology, Gen2, RAIN RFID and UHF are covered in our RFID glossary.
The workflow at the till
According to the case study, each checkout counter at the participating stores was fitted with one SR160 wired or paired to the existing POS terminal. The cashier places tagged items within the reader’s sensing field and the SR160 identifies them together, passing the product data to the POS for billing. Where an item fails to register because its tag is damaged, missing or unreadable, the cashier scans the printed barcode with the same device. Chainway describes this as an RFID-first, barcode-backup workflow, and stresses that no additional hardware or process redesign was needed at the point of sale.
The numbers, and whose numbers they are
Every performance figure in this deployment is Chainway’s, published in Chainway’s marketing of its own product. H&M has not published its own account of the trial, and the case study names no country, no number of stores and no individual, describing the sites only as selected high-volume stores. Read the figures on that basis. After several months of operation Chainway reports checkout time reduced by up to 80 per cent versus barcode-only scanning, missed or duplicated scan errors down by more than 70 per cent, one SR160 replacing two separate scanners at each counter, less device switching for staff, higher customer satisfaction scores, and better consistency between sales and inventory data because both RFID and barcode reads feed the same POS record.
That last point is the least headline-friendly and probably the most durable. A store running two scanning systems in parallel tends to end up with two versions of what it sold. Feeding both read types through one device and one data path is what makes real-time stock visibility survive the transition period, which for most retail chains is measured in years rather than months.
Read more at https://chainway.net/Cases/Info/243
