The story behind Mieloo & Alexander

The story behind Mieloo & Alexander company & product

“Our main priority is to support professionals with our passion for highly efficient technology.”

Mieloo & Alexander has over 20 years of experience in technical RFID implementations for Supply Chain and Logistics, Fashion and Apparel, and Retail. What started as a pure consulting company has become an RFID total solution provider with its own software products and development. At an early stage, its founders realized that RFID could be the perfect technology to parallelize flows of goods and information in real-time. From consulting and creating a concept to installing and maintaining the systems, we are a trusted partner for RFID, AutoID, IoT, and tracking solutions.

Easy Engineering: What are the fields you operate in?

Mieloo & Alexander: Mieloo & Alexander designs, builds, and deploys standard, configurable track & trace and stock management solutions for Fashion & Apparel Retail, Asset Management, and Supply Chain environments. We enable a wide range of businesses to automate data collection, streamline business processes, make data-based decisions, and achieve operational excellence.

Our (software) solutions are developed to appeal to a vast number of industries based on a mix of technologies. Examples include: 

Asset and parts tracking

Monitoring and managing the location and status of assets and parts within an organization. By attaching RFID tags to assets, businesses can quickly locate and monitor movement, maintenance history, and status. It can help streamline operations, reduce losses, and improve efficiency.

Inventory management

RFID improves visibility and control over inventory. By tagging items with RFID tags, you can easily monitor movement, stock levels, and expiration dates, leading to more accurate inventory counts, reduced stock-outs and overstocking, minimal manual labor, and better inventory accuracy. 

RTI tracking and management

Returnable Transport Items (RTIs) are reusable containers, pallets, or packaging used to transport goods. Tracking and managing these items include monitoring their movement, usage, and condition throughout the supply chain, ensuring they are efficiently returned and reused.

Process documentation

Our solutions capture and document various organizational processes, like standard operating procedures, workflows, and guidelines. Process documentation facilitates knowledge sharing, compliance, and continuous improvement.

Localization of parts

In industries where parts or components are used, it is critical to ensure that the correct part is available at the right location and time. The localization of parts involves tracking, managing, and optimizing the parts inventory and distribution to meet production or maintenance needs.

Integration with IoT and Automation

RFID can seamlessly integrate with other technologies, such as IoT (Internet of Things) devices and automation systems. Businesses can create intelligent and automated processes by combining RFID with sensors and actuators. For instance, RFID can trigger actions like automated inventory replenishment or maintenance requests based on real-time data.

By developing software solutions that fulfill these tasks, we provide valuable tools to help multiple industries enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs, and improve overall productivity.

E.E: What are the most significant projects in the history of the company?

Mieloo & Alexander: In 2012, we implemented the world’s most comprehensive RFID tracking system at the Port of Rotterdam. It tracks up to 45,000 cars over about 800,000 square meters in real-time.

Another example is the Heineken Experience, a famous museum located in Amsterdam. In 2022, Heineken Experience set out to create a brand-new merchandise store to offer customers an unforgettable experience. We helped them by implementing an innovative self-checkout and a fully-automated, RFID-based inventory management system (ARC Cloud). The newly introduced RFID tags, which employees can print on-demand, and gates allow Heineken Experience to track the movements of every item in store, from stock to sale. Mieloo & Alexander’s handheld scanners reduce the time for Heineken’s team to take stock from days to hours, and EAS gates scan if all items have been paid for on exit.

E.E: Which projects were the most challenging?

Mieloo & Alexander: The challenges we might face vary per project, industry, technology, scope, team dynamics, and organizational context. Every project is unique, and challenges are usually due to a mix of technical, organizational, and human factors. For example, small projects often directly impact specific tasks or processes, while larger projects tend to have a more considerable impact on the business as a whole. 

At Mieloo & Alexander, we are committed to conducting each project with the same care and attention. Working with the latest and most complex technologies — and even using them to create brand-new solutions — we aim to determine the most appropriate solution for our client before the we get started. We love to explore a wide range of possibilities and ways to make the most of the RFID solution. 

E.E: What products and services do you offer?

Mieloo & Alexander: We are an RFID, IoT, and AutoID solution provider. 

A deep-dive into our technology solutions: 

Our RFID solutions enable businesses in a wide range of industries to track and manage assets, inventory, and people in real-time, improving efficiency, accuracy, and automation. The solutions include RFID tags, readers, and a backend system. RFID tags contain electronic information and are attached to, or embedded in, objects. The RFID readers communicate with the tags wirelessly, allowing for data capture and identification. 

IoT (Internet of Things) refers to a network of interconnected physical devices, vehicles, buildings, and other objects embedded with sensors, software, and connectivity capabilities. Our devices can collect and exchange data over the internet, enabling them to interact with the environment and communicate with each other. Leveraging this connectivity, these IoT solutions offer advanced monitoring, control, and automation. In the RFID context, IoT can enhance RFID systems by connecting RFID devices to the internet, enabling remote monitoring, data analytics, and integration with other IoT-enabled devices and systems.

Our customers use our AutoID solutions, which include barcodes, QR codes, magnetic stripe cards, biometrics, and RFID, to identify, track, and capture data related to objects, products, assets, or individuals. Our AutoID solutions illustrate how, in addition to RFID, we can address various customer needs with, for example, automatic identification and data capture technologies. We take pride in being able to provide businesses with a complete (RFID, AutoID, and IoT) and customizable solution that meets their needs and helps them overcome challenges. In doing so, we offer them a one-stop shop, simplifying their procurement and implementation processes. 

Our services include consulting, planning, implementing, and maintaining RFID/AutoID and IoT solutions. The technologies we work with are, among others, RFID (active/passive), BLE, Vision/Camera, Barcoding, and Localization/RTLS.  Within this framework, we offer a range of products, such as complete RTLS systems that utilize multiple technologies (like RFID) to track and locate assets or individuals in real-time within a defined area.  We also offer RFID gates to automatically identify and track RFID-tagged items. RFID gates are commonly used for access control, inventory management, and security purposes. In addition to RFID gates, we offer tunnels — specialized setups that integrate RFID readers and antennas into conveyor systems, allowing for the continuous and automated reading of RFID-tagged items as they pass through the tunnel.Last but not least, we offer printing solutions. These typically include RFID-enabled printers that can print data (like barcodes or text) onto RFID labels and simultaneously encode the RFID chip embedded in the label. Printing solutions also include software platforms for label design, data management, and integration with backend systems. Overall, our RTLS systems, RFID gates, printing solutions, tunnels, and combinations of AutoID technologies provide businesses with a range of tools and capabilities to help them improve tracking, identification, data capture, and automation in different industry applications.

E.E: What are your most innovative products/services, and what special features do they include?

Mieloo & Alexander: We operate in an innovative industry where many cutting-edge practices are being made possible by technology. For example, we automate recording by making RFID an integral part of our customers’ infrastructure and processes. This ensures seamless and continuous RFID tracking and data capture within their operations, helping them optimize processes, improve efficiency and gain real-time visibility into their assets, inventory, and operations.

That’s just one example. In practice, our performance spectrum ranges from relatively simple RFID gates to entire localization systems that make processes more efficient, minimize process errors and eliminate searches. 

The complexity and performance of RFID solutions vary depending on factors like the number of RFID readers and antennas, how advanced the software algorithms for data analysis and localization are, and integration with backend systems. While RFID gates provide a more basic data capture and identification level, full-area localization systems offer greatly enhanced visibility and extensive real-time tracking options.

E.E: What was the research behind the products/solutions, and how important is R&D to you?

Mieloo & Alexander: The research involved in developing our RFID, AutoID, and IoT products and solution consists of studying technological advancements, market analysis, and customer needs assessments.

Our R&D team is immersed in further developing our products. On the one hand, we continuously challenge our own ‘status quo.’ On the other hand, our customers’ challenges keep us on our toes, always designing new approaches and development efforts. 

E.E: What products/solutions will you launch in the future?

Mieloo & Alexander: Firstly, we will continue to expand the functionalities of our existing software platforms. Secondly, we are working on integrating highly automated robots for fully automatic inventory tracking and camera-based tracking systems.

E.E: How important are after-sales services?

Mieloo & Alexander: “Just having a working solution is not enough. We care about how well your system works and how well we respond when it doesn’t.” After-sales service plays a crucial role in the success of our business. We believe it’s essential in building customer satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term relationships.  Because our systems are often production-relevant for our customers, we guarantee the highest possible availability, including the support you need in case of an issue. We have a well-trained support department in place and offer (24/7) support contracts. 

E.E: Tell us about social responsibility and its role in the company?

Mieloo & Alexander: As a company that deals with optimizing and increasing the efficiency of processes on a daily basis, “smart thinking” is one of our guiding principles. We motivate each and every one of our employees to use resources as efficiently as possible. At the same time, we cultivate a spirit of collaboration. As an international team in the project business, we work together in various contexts. Therefore, respectful interaction and having fun at work are particularly important to us. That is why we regularly organize joint activities such as a yearly ski trip, a team-building event, or a visit to our customer projects.