“Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is testing a way to bring even more automation and standardization to its supply chain. The company is sharing data from radio-frequency identification tags through automated EDI transmissions in a trial being conducted with a handful of suppliers and EPCglobal Inc., the standards group spearheading RFID adoption. The plan is for RFID tags to trigger advance shipping notices through the EPC Information Service network each time a supplier ships products out its doors. But that process is about a year away, says Simon Langford, RFID global manager at the nation’s largest retailer. Currently, advance shipping notices are sent from a supplier’s ERP system, but they don’t arrive in a standard format or in real time. By working with the centralized system being built by EPCglobal, Wal-Mart hopes to ensure that the data from its suppliers will arrive in a standard format in real time.”