What Is a Digital Product Passport?

A Digital Product Passport is a structured digital record that travels with a product throughout its lifecycle. It contains information about a product’s origin, materials, manufacturing processes, repairability, and end-of-life recycling instructions. The EU introduced the DPP framework under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), adopted in 2024, with the goal of driving circular economy practices and giving consumers transparent access to sustainability data.

The regulation targets specific product categories in phases. Batteries were first, with requirements already taking shape. Textiles and electronics follow closely, with broader rollouts expected through 2027 and beyond. By the end of the decade, most products sold within the EU market will need a DPP.

Why RFID Is the Natural Fit

While QR codes and other optical identifiers have their place, RFID offers distinct advantages that make it the preferred carrier technology for DPP data links.

UHF RFID, particularly RAIN RFID based on the ISO 18000-63 standard, enables bulk reading of tagged items without line-of-sight. A warehouse receiving hundreds of palletised goods can verify DPP compliance in seconds rather than scanning individual codes one at a time. For manufacturers dealing with high-volume production lines, this speed is not optional. It is essential.

NFC, operating at 13.56 MHz under ISO 14443 and ISO 15693, adds a consumer-facing layer. Shoppers can tap an NFC-enabled product with their smartphone to instantly access the DPP record, viewing details about where a garment was made, what chemicals were used, or how to recycle the packaging. This tap-to-read simplicity closes the gap between regulation and real-world usability.

Dual-frequency inlays combining UHF and NFC on a single tag are gaining traction for exactly this reason. They serve the supply chain’s need for speed and the consumer’s need for convenience in one integrated solution.

What Manufacturers Need to Prepare

Compliance with the DPP regulation is not a switch that flips overnight. Manufacturers should begin preparing now across several fronts.

First, data infrastructure needs attention. A DPP requires accurate, structured data about every product. Companies that lack robust product lifecycle management (PLM) systems will need to invest in capturing and organising this information.

Second, tagging strategy matters. Selecting the right RFID inlay, whether UHF, NFC, or dual-frequency, depends on the product type, packaging constraints, and where in the supply chain the tag will be read. Embedding RFID into garment labels differs significantly from tagging battery modules or electronic components.

Third, serialisation is critical. Each product needs a unique identifier linked to its DPP record. GS1 standards, including the SGTIN and GIAI schemes, provide the framework for this, and many RAIN RFID deployments already support GS1 EPC encoding natively.

A Practical Compliance Roadmap

For companies looking to get ahead of the curve, a phased approach makes sense.

In 2025 and 2026, focus on auditing existing product data and identifying gaps. Engage with your RFID tag suppliers and solution providers to evaluate tagging options. Run pilot programmes on a single product line to test data capture, tag performance, and system integration.

Through 2027, scale tagging across priority product categories. Integrate DPP data flows with existing ERP and supply chain management platforms. Ensure your serialisation processes align with GS1 standards.

From 2028 onward, expand to full product coverage as regulatory deadlines arrive for additional categories. Monitor evolving EU guidance and adjust your approach as standards mature.

The DPP regulation is not just a compliance burden. It is an opportunity to build trust with consumers, improve supply chain visibility, and future-proof operations. RFID technology, proven across billions of tagged items worldwide, provides the foundation to make it work at scale.

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RAIN Alliance, the non-profit industry body supporting the adoption of standards-based UHF RFID (also known as RAIN RFID), says the masterclass will tackle the technical challenges of embedding RAIN tags into tyres before moving into wider discussions around optimised lifecycle management in both manufacturing and active operations.

“We are excited to bring together participants from across the tyres value chain to explore real-world use cases and implementation strategies for RAIN tags in tyres,” said Aileen Ryan, President and CEO of RAIN Alliance. “Professionals across the entire tyre industry are welcome, as we explore how RAIN technology can create significant value and drive improved innovation, compliance and sustainability outcomes.”

The global tyre sector is under growing pressure to strengthen traceability in order to meet evolving regulatory demands and support the shift towards circular economy models. RAIN RFID is positioned as a foundational technology for enabling traceability throughout the full lifecycle of a tyre, from initial manufacturing and distribution through to use, retreading and end-of-life recycling.

Attendees at the masterclass will learn how RAIN RFID can be used to identify, locate, authenticate and engage with individual tyres while accessing core composition and origin data. The event will also look at how digital twin data is delivering real-time insights that power advanced business analytics, unlock new service-based revenue streams and create value across the tyre ecosystem.

Day two of the programme shifts focus to the practical benefits of tyre traceability for ecosystem partners, with dedicated sessions covering fleet management, safety and compliance, tyre service accuracy and efficiency, retreading and optimisation, end-of-life traceability and recycling, data access and interoperability, and hands-on guidance for embedding RAIN tags at industrial scale.

“As the tyres ecosystem continues to develop, RAIN Alliance will continue to provide both its members and the wider community with vendor-neutral expert insight to help develop the next generation of tyre technology,” Ryan added.

The masterclass is collocated with the GDSO Founding Workshop on 21 May, which will explore commercial use cases and active pilots for tyre electronic identification in North America. A further Tyres Masterclass is planned for later in the year in Korea.

Read more at https://therainalliance.org/tyres-mc-in-person/

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The collaboration will see VF roll out the Nedap Inventory Engine across its entire brand portfolio, building a unified foundation for real-time stock accuracy and omnichannel retail performance. Deployment begins in Q2 2026 with The North Face, before expanding to additional VF brands over the coming months.

At the heart of the initiative is VF’s ambition to create a single, trusted view of inventory across all its operations. By leveraging Nedap’s RFID-powered platform, the company aims to improve product availability on the shop floor, strengthen omnichannel fulfilment capabilities and deliver a more consistent consumer experience across every touchpoint.

The scope of the programme extends well beyond the store estate. VF has also expanded its RFID initiative into distribution centres and vendor partners at source, giving the company greater transparency across the full supply chain. This broader visibility supports efforts to combat grey-market activity and reinforce brand protection across all regions.

“Our consumers expect the same level of product availability and service whether they shop online, in-store or through any of our brand touchpoints,” said Carsten Trenz, VP of Digital at VF Corporation. “Unified visibility across our operations allows us to deliver that consistency and build long-term customer loyalty.”

Hope Waldron, VP of Supply Chain Strategy at VF Corporation, added: “Extending our RFID programme beyond stores to include distribution centres and vendor partners at the source gives us greater transparency across our entire supply chain. That visibility improves our ability to ensure product availability, strengthen brand protection, and deliver a more consistent consumer experience.”

The decision to partner with Nedap came after VF completed a pilot using an alternative solution and subsequently reassessed its long-term requirements for scalability, architecture and global support. The company ultimately chose Nedap for its proven ability to deliver at scale across complex, multi-brand retail environments.

“In today’s retail landscape, unified commerce only works when brands can rely on one consistent source of truth for their inventory,” said Hilbert Dijkstra, Managing Director Retail at Nedap. “VF’s decision to invest in end-to-end visibility reflects a clear vision for the future: the ability to serve consumers seamlessly across any channel.”

Nedap’s Inventory Engine connects item movement across stores, distribution centres and factories, creating a single reliable view of inventory for the entire retail chain. The platform turns inventory movement into real-time insight, helping retailers operate with greater confidence, agility and precision.

With more than 1,500 stores set to benefit from the rollout, the VF-Nedap partnership represents one of the largest RFID inventory visibility deployments in the fashion and outdoor retail sector this year.

Read more at https://www.nedap-retail.com/vf-corporation-enters-partnership-with-nedap-to-unlock-end-to-end-inventory-visibility-across-its-global-store-estate%ef%bf%bc/

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Map Out the Full Cost Picture

The biggest mistake in RFID budgeting is focusing solely on tag prices. Tags are just one line item. A complete cost model should cover five categories:

Tags and consumables. Unit costs vary widely. A passive UHF inlay for retail might sit below five pence, while a ruggedised on-metal tag for asset tracking could reach several pounds. Multiply by expected volume and factor in attrition rates for tags that get damaged or lost.

Readers and antennas. Fixed readers at dock doors, handheld readers for cycle counts, overhead readers for conveyor lines. Include mounting hardware, cabling, and any edge-computing devices needed at the read point.

Middleware and software. This is the layer that filters, deduplicates, and routes tag data into your existing systems. Some organisations use commercial RFID middleware platforms; others build lightweight connectors directly into their ERP or WMS. Either way, licence fees, hosting, and ongoing support belong in the model.

Integration. Connecting RFID event data to warehouse management, ERP, or point-of-sale systems is often the most underestimated cost. Budget for API development, data mapping, user acceptance testing, and a parallel-run period where old and new processes overlap.

Training and change management. Staff need to understand new workflows, how to handle exceptions when a tag fails to read, and how to interpret dashboard data. A rushed training phase leads to workarounds that erode ROI.

Quantify the Benefits

Hard savings are the easiest to defend. Calculate current labour hours spent on manual counts, barcode scanning, or searching for misplaced assets, then estimate the reduction RFID will deliver. In retail, inventory accuracy improvements from around 65 percent to above 95 percent are well documented and translate directly into fewer stockouts and markdowns.

Soft benefits matter too, but label them honestly. Faster receiving, improved compliance audit times, and better customer experience all have value. Assign conservative estimates and flag them as secondary gains rather than primary justification.

Calculate the Payback Period

A simple payback model works for most initial business cases. Divide total project cost by annual net benefit to find the number of years until the investment breaks even. Many RFID projects in logistics and retail achieve payback within 12 to 18 months. For asset tracking in healthcare or manufacturing, the timeline may stretch to two years but often comes with regulatory or safety benefits that carry weight beyond pure financials.

For larger deployments, consider a discounted cash flow approach that accounts for phased rollouts and scaling costs. A pilot phase covering one facility or product line keeps upfront risk low while generating real data to refine the model before full-scale commitment.

Present It as a Template

Structure your business case document with an executive summary, a cost breakdown table, a benefits summary with assumptions clearly stated, a payback timeline, and a risk register. Keep the language plain and the numbers auditable. Decision-makers trust a model they can stress-test over one that looks polished but hides its assumptions.

Building a business case for RFID is not about proving the technology works. That debate is long settled. It is about proving it works for your operation, at your scale, with your constraints. Get the cost categories right, quantify benefits conservatively, and let the numbers make the argument.

The post How to Build a Business Case for RFID first appeared on RFID News.

Working with solution provider Seuic Technologies, the chain has embedded RAIN RFID chips directly into towels, sheets and bathrobes. Housekeeping and laundry staff use the AUTOID UTouch 2-S handheld reader, built around Seuic’s E510 high-performance RAIN RFID module, to scan dozens of items in seconds rather than counting by hand.

For a luxury operator handling tens of thousands of linen items every day, the efficiency gain translates into measurable reductions in shrinkage, misplaced stock and reconciliation errors. Every scan is pushed into a centralised platform in real time, giving laundry managers, floor staff and procurement teams a single source of truth for where each item sits in the use, wash and return cycle.

Hotels have traditionally relied on handwritten logs and spreadsheet inventories to track textiles, a process notorious for slow throughput and missing data. When a bathrobe disappears or a towel fails to come back from the laundry, the cost is easy to underestimate until it is multiplied by hundreds of rooms and thousands of turns per year. RAIN RFID changes that equation by making each item individually identifiable without line-of-sight scanning, so a full trolley of laundry can be read in a single pass.

The Marriott deployment reflects a broader shift inside hospitality. Linen pooling, uniform management and minibar stock are all emerging as natural fits for UHF item-level tagging. Operators gain visibility of asset lifespans, can enforce wash-count limits before replacement, and can settle disputes with laundry partners using objective scan data rather than estimates.

Seuic’s AUTOID UTouch 2 series is positioned as a rugged field device for environments where readers have to survive knocks, moisture and long shifts. The E510 module inside the handheld is engineered for high read rates in cluttered metal and fabric environments, which matters in a hotel basement full of steel linen trolleys and tiled walls.

For the wider industry, the case study strengthens the argument that RAIN RFID has moved past pilot territory in hospitality. Luxury brands are typically cautious adopters of back-of-house technology because guest experience cannot be disrupted, so a production rollout at Marriott signals that the technology is now considered ready for premium operators.

The takeaway for hotel groups still evaluating linen tracking is straightforward. Manual counts are expensive in labour, slow in execution and unreliable in data quality. RAIN RFID removes all three limitations in one step and, on the numbers Marriott is reporting, repays the investment quickly.

The post Smart Hotel Operations enabled by RAIN RFID at Marriott International first appeared on RFID News.

Before RFID, Zara’s stores relied on barcode scanning and manual stock checks. Inventory accuracy hovered around 65%, a figure that meant roughly one in three items could be misplaced, miscounted, or invisible to the supply chain. For a retailer that refreshes its collections twice a week, that level of uncertainty was a serious drag on performance.

The solution came in the form of UHF RAIN RFID tags embedded into garment security labels. Each tag carries a unique Electronic Product Code (EPC) that identifies the individual item, not just the SKU. Store staff can now conduct a full inventory count of an entire shop floor in a matter of hours using handheld RFID readers, a process that previously took days with barcode scanners.

The results have been striking. Inventory accuracy jumped from around 65% to above 95%, giving store managers real-time visibility into exactly what is on the shop floor, in the stockroom, and in transit. Weekly cycle counts became standard practice rather than a quarterly ordeal. Staff could identify which sizes and colours were running low and trigger replenishment before gaps appeared on the rails.

This level of granularity feeds directly into Zara’s famously responsive supply chain. When a particular style sells through quickly in Madrid but sits untouched in Milan, the data is visible almost immediately. Redistribution decisions that once took days now happen within hours. The RFID data also supports markdown optimisation, helping stores discount only what genuinely needs moving rather than applying blanket reductions.

From a technology standpoint, Inditex worked closely with tag manufacturers and reader vendors to ensure consistent read rates across diverse store environments. Metallic fixtures, dense product displays, and varying store layouts all present challenges for UHF signals, and the company invested heavily in optimising antenna placement and tag orientation to maintain reliable performance.

The competitive advantage is clear. Zara’s ability to move product from design to store in as little as two weeks was already exceptional. Adding RFID visibility to that pipeline means the company can now react to demand signals with even greater speed and accuracy. Overstocking drops, out-of-stock events decrease, and sell-through rates improve.

For the wider retail sector, Zara’s RFID deployment serves as a blueprint. It demonstrates that item-level tagging at scale is not only feasible but delivers measurable returns. The technology has moved well beyond pilot programmes and proof-of-concept trials. It is now a core operational tool for one of the world’s largest fashion retailers.

Other brands within the Inditex group, including Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, and Bershka, have followed suit with their own RFID implementations, building on the infrastructure and expertise developed during Zara’s rollout. The group’s commitment to RFID underlines a simple truth: in fast fashion, knowing exactly what you have and where you have it is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

The post Case Study: Zara’s RFID-Powered Fast Fashion Machine first appeared on RFID News.

The move puts one of the most recognisable long term growth investors in Europe squarely behind a company that sits at the heart of the RAIN RFID industry. Impinj supplies the tag chips, reader chips, and complete reader systems that make passive UHF tagging work at scale, and its technology is deeply embedded in retail, healthcare, airport baggage handling, and manufacturing supply chains.

For a firm with Baillie Gifford’s track record of backing companies through long innovation cycles, Impinj fits the profile. RAIN RFID is moving from an inventory management tool used by early adopters to a core piece of supply chain infrastructure, and Impinj is one of the few pure play suppliers able to provide the silicon that powers it. Every tag that ends up on a garment, a pallet, or a pharmaceutical carton drives chip volumes, and those volumes are climbing as more sectors adopt item level tagging.

The investment lands at an interesting moment for Impinj’s share price. Shares opened the day at $104.71, well below a 52 week high of $247.06 and closer to the $62.94 low. Analyst sentiment is mixed, with a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $167.63. Recent earnings were in line with expectations at $0.50 per share, on revenue of $92.85 million that slightly topped estimates, though the company still carries a negative net margin and has guided to a softer first quarter.

Despite the near term noise, the longer term story is compelling enough to attract the kind of capital Baillie Gifford commits. RAIN RFID tag shipments are on a sustained growth curve, and Impinj retains a dominant position in the reader chip market, which gives it pricing leverage and a direct window into customer demand. New verticals including food, logistics, and passwordless authentication are starting to scale, and each one pulls on the same core silicon that Impinj designs.

Beyond Baillie Gifford, other institutional investors have been adjusting their positions as well. Bessemer Group and Advisors Asset Management both added to their holdings in recent quarters, suggesting that a wider cohort of professional investors is willing to look past quarterly volatility in pursuit of the longer RAIN RFID growth story.

For the RFID industry, the signal is worth noting. When a firm with Baillie Gifford’s reputation for patient capital takes a new position in a pure play RAIN RFID supplier, it reinforces the view that the technology has moved beyond early adoption and into the kind of structural growth phase that long term investors try hard not to miss.

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The programme uses passive UHF RAIN RFID tags applied directly to packages, paired with reader infrastructure installed across sorting hubs. Each tagged parcel triggers a read the moment it passes through a scan point, without the need for a worker to line up a barcode. That change eliminates one of the most stubborn bottlenecks in large scale parcel handling and removes a common source of missed scans that lead to delays and misroutes.

For UPS customers, the benefits show up in the details. Packages are logged automatically at induction, during sortation, at loading, and again when they leave a facility. Every one of those touch points feeds real time data back to tracking systems, so shippers and recipients see movement updates reflected more quickly and more accurately than before. The extra resolution helps retailers manage returns, reduces the volume of customer service queries, and gives operations teams earlier warning when something is off.

RAIN RFID is well suited to the job. The passive UHF tags are low cost, battery free, and can be read in bulk at high speed, which is a fit for an environment moving millions of packages through hubs each day. Readers can capture dozens of items simultaneously, a step change from one at a time barcode scanning. Because the tags do not need line of sight, packages can be oriented in any direction and still get picked up.

The data layer is where UPS expects the real transformation to show. Each scan creates a verifiable event that is tied to an individual parcel, which builds a complete chain of custody for every shipment. That kind of granular record supports better exception handling, smarter network planning, and more accurate service commitments, particularly for time sensitive freight. It also positions UPS to offer more advanced analytics products to enterprise shippers who increasingly want raw data they can plug into their own supply chain platforms.

Industry observers see the move as a meaningful signal for RFID more broadly. While retailers like Walmart have driven much of the recent RAIN RFID adoption through inventory mandates, the UPS programme extends the technology into the transit and logistics layer, where the operational gains compound with every handoff. The deployment demonstrates that RFID is no longer a pilot technology in logistics but an infrastructure investment with returns measured in reliability and throughput.

UPS has framed the rollout as part of a broader push to raise service standards across its network, and the early indications suggest the investment is paying off. With package volumes growing and customer expectations rising, the visibility delivered by RFID gives UPS a tangible advantage in an extremely competitive market, and sets a reference point that other carriers will find hard to ignore.

Read more at https://about.ups.com/mx/en/newsroom/press-releases/customer-first/ups-s-rfid-sensingtechnologytransformslogisticsindustry-givingcu.html

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At the heart of UHF RFID adoption is the GS1 EPC Gen2 standard, also known as ISO 18000-63. This protocol defines how UHF tags and readers communicate, ensuring interoperability between hardware from different manufacturers. The standard supports features like dense reader mode, which allows multiple readers to operate in close proximity without interference, and tag memory banks that can store unique product identifiers alongside user-defined data.

Compared to other RFID frequency bands, UHF stands apart in several key areas. Low Frequency (LF) RFID, operating at 125 to 134 kHz, provides read ranges of only a few centimetres and is typically used for animal identification and access control. High Frequency (HF) RFID at 13.56 MHz extends that range to about one metre and powers applications like contactless payments and library systems. UHF pushes well beyond both, offering read distances that make it ideal for warehouse management, retail inventory, and supply chain logistics where items need to be scanned quickly at a distance.

In retail, UHF RFID has transformed inventory management. Major retailers use it to achieve inventory accuracy rates above 95%, enabling real-time stock visibility from warehouse to shop floor. Tags attached to individual items can be read in bulk, allowing staff to count thousands of products in minutes rather than hours. This same capability drives adoption in logistics, where pallets and cases tagged with UHF inlays pass through dock door portals at speed, automating receiving and shipping processes.

The power profile of UHF RFID also deserves attention. UHF tags are passive, meaning they harvest energy from the reader’s radio signal to power their response. This keeps tag costs low, often just a few pence per unit at volume, and eliminates the need for batteries. Readers, however, must transmit at higher power levels than their LF and HF counterparts. Typical UHF reader output sits between 1 and 2 watts EIRP, depending on regional regulations, which accounts for the extended read range.

Regional frequency allocations do vary. In Europe, UHF RFID operates within 865.6 to 867.6 MHz under ETSI regulations, while the US permits a wider band from 902 to 928 MHz. These differences mean that global deployments require tags and readers designed to work across the full 860 to 960 MHz spectrum, something that modern hardware handles comfortably.

With the continued growth of RAIN RFID, the industry alliance promoting UHF technology, and billions of tags shipped annually, UHF RFID has firmly established itself as the dominant frequency for large-scale identification and tracking. Its combination of range, speed, cost efficiency, and standards compliance makes it the natural choice for organisations looking to digitise their physical operations.

The post What is UHF RFID and Why Does It Dominate Modern Deployments? first appeared on RFID News.

Spec H sits inside the GS1 Tag Performance Specifications, a set of letter-graded profiles that GS1 created so brand owners can pick RFID tags against consistent, measurable criteria rather than vendor marketing. Each specification sets out the read performance a tag is expected to deliver across free air, against different substrates, close to other tags, and at varying angles. The idea is that if a brand says it only buys Spec H certified tags, it can be confident every inlay on its packs or garments will behave in broadly the same way on the reader.

For SML, being first to market with a Spec H product is a notable claim. The company already supplies tags and inlays at scale to apparel, accessories and general merchandise brands, and has been pushing to keep pace as retailers move beyond store replenishment and towards loss prevention, self-checkout and inventory accuracy at pack level. A wider range of GS1 specifications means suppliers can match the right inlay to the right product rather than forcing one design to cover every use case.

The GB25U8 is aimed squarely at applications where GS1 Spec H performance is called for in the brand’s tagging rules. In practice this tends to mean products where tag orientation, proximity to other items and the substrate behind the tag are all variable and all need to be read reliably in store or in the distribution centre. By meeting the Spec H envelope, SML is effectively telling its customers that the inlay has been measured against GS1’s defined test regime and delivers against it, rather than against a bespoke manufacturer test.

The launch also fits a broader industry trend. GS1’s performance specifications have quietly become a shortcut in tender documents and tagging mandates, because they give supply chain and procurement teams a common language when comparing inlays. Expect more vendors to follow SML’s lead with their own Spec H certified products over the coming year as retail programmes expand and as RAIN RFID continues its move into new categories including food, beauty and home.

For brand owners already operating item-level RFID, the GB25U8 gives them a defined option to slot into their approved tag list. For brands still planning a programme, it is a reminder that matching the inlay to the application by specification, rather than by price or availability, is now the expected starting point for any serious RAIN RFID rollout.

Read more at https://www.sml.com/blogs/sml-rfid-launches-gb25u8-inlay-the-first-spec-h-inlay/

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