Unique Item Tracking in Refurbishment Operations

Karri: Quick discussion about the LP and the license plate number. So, to my understanding, if, for example, iPhones, they already have some kind of unique identifier, so that's probably something that you want to use if you're able to kind of get it out of the product. But then if it's, let's say, a pile of clothes, is it still important to kind of start tracking them individually from that point on? So, are you putting like a label that this is a red dress from Gucci, or is this the specific red dress from Gucci? Yeah.

Tuomo: Super dependent on the refurbishment capabilities there. But the earlier you're able to track items individually, the better you're able to track your operational efficiency or profitability and all of the data that starts to be attached to that. So getting from an aggregate data accumulation to an individual data accumulation enables you just to learn a bit more. So, like you said, something like phones might have an IMEI code, and you might still want to use something specific for your system. Because if you've done a lot of automation in your processes, some of those might depend on a specific format, for example, for the license plate number or the unique identifier. You might also have things like automated tracking based on RFIDs. So if you attach an RFID tag to the piece of item or clothes, then your system might be intelligent enough to automatically know where it is currently going on. So, in clothing, in Glasgow, there's a company, ACS Clothing. If you ever have a chance to visit their facility, I think that's an eye-opener in terms of how to follow individual garments and the different steps in the process that happens after that, and automatically kind of knowing where everything is.

I haven't had the chance to visit their facility, but there's a company called J.C. Electronics that I met in Brussels during the World Circular Economy Forum. They do electronics refurbishment for like manufacturing plants. They also have larger facilities and I can imagine that they, for example, for, you know, a component of that size or a manufacturing device, they might have some needs to follow these individually already quite from an early point in the process.

Karri: So the LP and the license plate number can be in, let's say, RFID or QR code, or basically anything that helps the operation to handle...

Tuomo: Exactly. And maybe it's worth rather saying that I think systems like how we think about it and how we're building our system is that an item can actually have multiple license plate numbers. So you don't have to kind of try to figure out like, "I have this one and now everything needs to kind of follow this one." At the end of the day, you get attached like even 100 different unique identifiers to that, as long as they are in their own little scope, they are unique. So it doesn't have to be one single kind of namespace that you use for it, but as long as you kind of have a process where you might have the options to start tagging or minting – I've heard different verbs being used for this license plate number. I think "identification" is one, and then like "minting" and "tagging" and all of these things. I want to also, by the way, mention for the license plate stuff that at best case, you don't actually have to mint them yourself. Manufacturers are in increasing numbers already doing this tagging or minting already at the manufacturing. So that all of the supply line after that can always kind of use that one, one source of identification. Just wanted to put it out there quickly, because it makes all of these later processes a lot easier.

Karri: Is that based on regulation or what? Why are some companies starting to do that?

Tuomo: I think there are a few things. There is regulation for that. I think the Digital Product Passport in the European Union is kind of pushing towards that world. But there's also, in certain, like you already said that iPhones kind of have that or phones kind of have that unique identifier, so there might be some other needs from the manufacturer's perspective that why they wanted to have every iPhone to be uniquely trackable. Then with, there are, like with sporting goods, the relationship with the manufacturers are such that they might, for example, have a specific product line for rentals. And of course, they want to serve their customers, which in this case usually are rental companies, as well as they can. So companies like Atomic and Fischer are already kind of identifying those, attaching extremely durable QR codes or barcodes to the ski, for example, a pair of skis, so that they are matched. So that it makes the job of the rental company easier when they want to put these items to their own system and use the kind of manufacturer-grade, more durable, kind of usually in-grade barcodes there. And they, they even go to a place where they have these matching barcodes between the two skis and then they might have individual barcodes for each one of those skis so that you can later on repair things, if you want, not repair but re pair.