As peak shipping season ramps up, logistics teams are under more pressure than ever to keep packages moving accurately and on time. While automation has improved many parts of the process, misloads remain a stubborn issue across the industry. In this interview, Gagan Luthra, VP of Product Management at Impinj, breaks down what’s behind those mistakes and how RAIN RFID is helping carriers tighten up operations.

What’s Related

Supply Chain 24/7: For readers who may not be familiar, what is RAIN RFID, and why are logistics companies starting to use it?

Gagan Luthra: RAIN RFID is a passive, battery-free wireless technology that enables global enterprises to seamlessly identify, locate, authenticate, and engage with products tagged with an RFID tag. RAIN RFID is both low-cost and provides the ability to identify and locate items quickly and without direct line-of-sight, including identifying up to 1,000 items per second. Tagged products can be read using a fixed or handheld reader, delivering item-level data to enterprise applications that can aggregate and transform the data into actionable insights.

Throughout 2025, logistics companies have been tasked with navigating challenges, including global tariffs, which have resulted in increased costs and shifting sourcing and supplier relationships – along with managing the growing threat of counterfeiting and fraud. As a result, logistics companies have increasingly turned to RAIN RFID to strengthen their supply chain visibility. The technology’s ability to quickly identify and authenticate products provides logistics teams with a comprehensive view of their supply chain at the item level. It gives teams the data they need to make important decisions that affect various logistics workflows. 

SC247: Misloads are still a big issue during the holidays. Why do they keep happening even with all the tech already in place?

GL: According to a 2024 survey of supply chain professionals, while nearly 95% believe their organization is equipped to drive accurate supply chain visibility, only a third (33%) consistently deliver accurate, 360°, real-time inventory visibility. This is a result of the manual technology that supply chain teams currently use and remains a major contributor to misloads. Barcodes, for example, do not have the tracking capabilities that would enable logistics teams to gain greater oversight of package locations during the delivery process. Item-level data solutions like RAIN RFID help ensure that logistics teams know where packages are as they move through each step of the logistics chain, and as such, can tackle delivery issues with greater speed and precision. 

SC247: What are the most common causes of misloads—human error, process issues, labeling problems, or something else?

GL: The same 2024 survey found that nearly 75% of supply chain managers within transportation and logistics firms are concerned about the rise of Load Planning Problems (LPPs), misloads, and delivery errors impacting their organization. Today, the most common causes of misloads are: 

Human error: This can look like packages being mislabeled, misplaced, or loaded onto the wrong truck out of the warehouse or other milestones in the supply chain 

Operational inefficiencies: Challenges across supply chain workflows, including last-minute route changes that divert packages from their intended destination, contribute to the inefficiencies that come with shipping and transporting items 

Operational overload: during especially busy times – like the months and weeks leading up to the holidays – package volumes surge, increasing the likelihood of mistakes – including misloads. With an estimated 2 billion packages expected to be delivered during the 2025 holiday season and an average misload rate of 0.2%, more than 4 million packages could be misrouted. 

SC247: UPS reported a major decrease in misloads after adopting RAIN RFID. How does the technology actually help prevent mistakes?

GL: With a global air and ground network serving more than 200 countries and territories, UPS must leverage advanced traceability solutions to seamlessly manage operations and stay ahead of the immense demand it faces. Reducing the rate of misloads and other delivery errors remains a critical priority for a company like UPS, and such, they’ve invested and deployed RFID to address this industry-wide issue while also improving their overall operational efficiency. 

After rolling out phase one of Smart Package Smart Facility, UPS’ RFID solution, across more than 1,000 U.S. buildings, UPS shared that they reduced misloads by 67%. The deployment of sophisticated systems like that used at the RFID-enabled Smart Facility has enabled the company to optimize network efficiency and asset utilization, as well as improve end-to-end shipment visibility. This end-to-end shipment visibility is integral to reducing the errors that lead to misloads and provides greater oversight into package deliveries. 

SC247: How hard is it to add RAIN RFID to existing warehouse or delivery operations? Does it work with current systems?

GL: Adding RAIN RFID to existing warehouses or delivery operations is much easier today than it was a decade ago. Today’s RFID hardware is designed for reliability, engineered for consistent, high-quality reads and simple, out of the box implementation. These solutions are designed to integrate seamlessly with current systems, reducing complexity, and accelerating the time to value for companies without requiring a complete infrastructure overhaul. 

Beyond technology, the ecosystem has matured. We now have a robust network of solution providers, partners and system integrators that bring deep RAIN RFID expertise to ensure smooth integration and execution of RAIN RFID technology. This means businesses can quickly unlock benefits such as improved accuracy, efficiency and real-time visibility seamlessly and without disrupting existing workflows. 

SC247: Besides fewer misloads, what other day-to-day improvements can RAIN RFID help with during peak shipping season?

GL: According to the same research, among the top challenges faced in ensuring supply chain resiliency and integrity are: responding to rapid spikes or shifts in consumer demand, labor shortages, and rising rates of shrink. 

RAIN RFID can help tackle all of these challenges. It improves end-to-end supply chain visibility, which allows brands to nimbly respond to rapid changes in consumer demand — for example by re-routing excess goods to high-demand regions. RAIN RFID can also help reduce counterfeits by enabling organizations to automate the authentication of goods at each step of the supply chain. All of these operational improvements help reduce the amount of labor required, and more efficiently use the labor available for high-impact (rather than highly manual) tasks.

SC247: Can this technology help with rising concerns like lost packages or fraudulent shipping activity?

GL: From Load Planning Problems (LLPs) to misloads, to fraudulent shipping and delivery errors, logistics teams are constantly navigating new challenges to their shipping operations that are only heightened during peak times like the holiday season. Given the technology’s ability to identify, locate, and authenticate products once they are tagged, logistics teams can use either fixed or handheld readers to scan, authenticate, and update their enterprise database with the last known location of a package. This capability is integral to reducing the risk of packages being lost and ensuring that the right package is being transported and delivered to its intended destination. 

In addition to RAIN RFID, innovations such as Endpoint IC Verification and tag selection add critical layers of protection and operational efficiency to combat these challenges further. Endpoint IC Verification enables readers and printers to authenticate tags during routine inventory operations, ensuring that only real and genuine tagged items are moved through the supply chain. This verification eliminates the vulnerabilities from illicit endpoint ICs with changeable TIDs that are currently available on the market. This is particularly valuable during peak shipping periods like the holidays, when the risk of counterfeit products and fraud is increased. 

SC247: Do you expect RAIN RFID to become a standard for parcel delivery in the next few years—and what might that look like?

GL: We are continuing to witness the growing adoption of RAIN RFID across retail, healthcare, and food and grocery industries. The concrete results that global companies like UPS are witnessing through their adoption of RFID technology serve as a critical indicator to the continued adoption we are seeing now and hope to continue to see in the coming years.