A supply chain can be defined as “the activities covering the procurement of raw materials, storage, production and assembly, stock control, distribution, order management, and delivery of the product to the end user, as well as the information systems necessary for monitoring and controlling these activities” (Author, Year, p. ##). Information technologies have a very important position in the supply chains due to the very close relationship they have with one another.

As an information technology used in supply chains, barcode technologies have been preferred due to how they provide traceability and accuracy in all supply-chain operations and have currently reached an important position. In recent years, QR codes are a technology that have been used frequently in industry circles and found a wide area of use in the public sector due to their reliability. QR code technology can be read very quickly, is also able to read data with alphanumeric and binary characters in addition to numerical data, has a low margin of error regarding reading, and is more tolerant to negative situations such as erasures, contamination, and wear and tearing; all these facts have made this technology more advantageous than barcode technology.

Meanwhile, stocking and warehouse operations occupy an important place in supply chains as these operations occur in all links of the supply chain and have become a priority area of improvement for companies that want to increase the supply chain efficiency. Stocking and warehouse operations are currently carried out with either barcode or QR code technologies; however, changing and developing conditions have affected customer needs; as such, all supply chain links and ultimately stocking and warehouse operations have also been affected. The increases in the quality and quantity of stored products have made stock management and warehouse management difficult. However, trying to continue these processes using barcode and QR code technologies has slowed them down, with the targets desired for speed, flexibility, and accuracy not being achieved.

Rapid developments in technology have forced businesses to become fast. For this reason, radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology has entered the agenda of businesses as a fast, flexible, accurate, technology free from human error. RFID technology promises an environment of fast, human-independent operation as much as possible. For this reason, businesses have become aware that effective stocking and storage operations are necessary for an effective supply chain and have begun investigating how RFID technologies can be used in these operations. The study’s case involves the use of this technology in a warehouse of a third-party logistics service provider company. In this warehouse environment, the stocked materials have been equipped with RFID tags that guide the nearest handling equipment for ordered products; this environment creates an appropriate collection order using RFID technology to collect and transfer the products to their desired points.

Existing warehouse operational structures only use barcode technologies to determine the location of products that have been ordered. Which transport device will handle these products and in which order depends entirely on the knowledge and experience of the warehouse personnel. However, RFID technology permits more complex operations to be performed, such as determining the locations of the transport devices that will handle certain products as well as the order in which products will be handled by these devices. This study examines this situation that RFID technologies promise by presenting it concretely in an applied example. This applied example involves the use of RFID technology in the warehouse of a third-party logistics service provider company. The warehouse environment where the stocked materials and transportation tools have been set up with RFID tags use the RFID technology to guide the transportation device closest to the products that have been ordered and to create an appropriate collection order for the products, collecting and transferring them to their desired points. The frequencies and wavelengths of the RFID readers are used to determine the locations of the transport devices and to calculate the Euclidian distances as an intuitive method for creating collection sequences.

Stock management and warehouse management within supply chains are perhaps the most labor-intensive and most critical operations. Any disruption in these operations represents a negative disruption to the overall supply chain. For this reason, the study focuses on this area and emphasizes the importance of improving these operations within the supply chain.

RFID technology not only allows for the continuous monitoring of movement in the supply chain but also provides the opportunity to effectively and efficiently direct these movements by selecting the right tools, detailed information about objects in motion, and rather comprehensive reporting. As big data analysis is currently gaining importance, this detailed reporting service RFID technologies offer will open the door to many future improvements.