Overall Maker Goes to Manhattan for RFID Expertise

Published: August 29, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Walls Industries, a manufacturer of overalls and other clothes for working and hunting, has licensed Manhattan Associates' electronic product code software, called EPC Manager, as part of a roll-out of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to meet the January RFID deadline of Wal-Mart.

Privately held Walls Industries has been providing bib overalls to hunters and construction workers for 70 years. Since the mid-1990s, the Dallas-based company has relied on one Manhattan Associates product--the notoriously sturdy, OS/400-based Warehouse Management System--to manage the activities at its Fort Worth distribution center. Walls has used the software effectively, and boasts of a 99 percent accuracy rate in its shipments.

Despite the expertise in managing its deliveries, Walls had to make a change. In 2002, Wal-Mart announced that its suppliers needed to replace barcodes on their shipments with RFID chips. The deadline for Walls and suppliers of size is now January 2007--just four short months away.

As it turns out, Walls Industries didn't look far for RFID support. The company chose the Atlanta-based software company's Microsoft .NET-based EPC Manager, which captures and tracks unique EPC events, such as the arrival or delivery of an RFID-equipped pallet.

Tom Felton, chief information officer at Walls, says the RFID decision was easy to make. "Manhattan Associates has been a great partner over the years, and we value the relationship," Felton says. "It has provided us with not only the solutions to support our distribution activities but the hardware as well--from our IBM System i servers to scan guns. When it came time to look for an RFID solution, we quickly determined that the best course of action was to leverage our relationship with Manhattan Associates."