Consider a perfectly ordinary retail embarrassment. A customer wants a shirt. The computer says the store has one. An associate searches the rack, then the stockroom, then asks a colleague. The customer leaves. The shirt may still be somewhere in the building. What failed first was the connection between the inventory record and the physical object.
That hypothetical shirt explains Mojix better than a cloud diagram does. Its software follows individual items through receipts, movements and sales, turning identification data into something a person can use. The commercial question is wonderfully blunt: can you find what you already own?
- Mojix gives individual products a traceable digital identity.
- Perry Ellis used its technology to make inventory checks a weekly routine.
- The technology now carries the BarTender Track & Trace name.
From Jupiter to the stockroom
Mojix began in 2004 with expertise that had travelled considerably farther than a distribution centre. Founder Ramin Sadr had worked at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The World Economic Forum describes a founding team of former JPL/NASA scientists and engineers applying deep-space communications advances to RFID. Mojix became one of its Technology Pioneers for 2009.
RFID, or radio frequency identification, gives a tagged object an identity that a reader can detect. But detecting an object leaves another job unfinished: interpreting what happened to it. A business needs to connect the read with a receipt, a shipment or a sale, then update the systems employees actually consult.
In 2015, Mojix acquired TierConnect and its CodeRoad subsidiary, adding the ViZix software platform and more than 100 engineers. The acquisition announcement described the purpose plainly: “This will further bridge the gap between its RFID hardware platform, the edge and IoT.” A receiver was becoming part of a larger software proposition.
- 01IdentifyGive the item a unique ID
- 02CaptureRead it as work happens
- 03InterpretRecord receipt or movement
- 04ActFind, count or replenish
The count became a habit
Perry Ellis supplies the useful operational detail. Mojix’s customer account describes an integration with the retailer’s existing ERP system and fixed RFID readers in 11 pilot stores. Later, Perry Ellis moved to handheld readers throughout its US retail stores. Cycle counts went from annual to weekly.
Across those phases, the inventory objective stayed the same: make stock visible enough to support store work. For another retailer, the useful lesson is to test the counting routine before treating the pilot architecture as permanent.
The lesson is about repetition. An annual count gives a business a corrected picture on one occasion. Weekly counting creates more opportunities to notice discrepancies and investigate them. More frequent checks can make discrepancies easier to investigate while the relevant stock movements are still recent.
A different rhythm for checking what is actually there.
The zipper gets a vote
At Brazil’s Pernambucanas, a 2023 deployment account describes another ingredient: cooperation. Mojix supplied the ytem software; Acura supplied RFID reader equipment; Beontag supplied customized labels and printing infrastructure. The retailer reported inventory accuracy above 99% across a deployment covering roughly 500 stores.
The amusing detail is a pair of jeans. Tag placement had to account for the metal zipper; the partners selected the front waistband so the zipper would not disrupt transmission. Digital transformation still has to negotiate with trousers.
There is a copyable practice here. Treat tagging as part of the product and receiving process. Test readability on actual merchandise. A sensible location in a diagram can be a poor location on a garment.
Digital transformation still has to negotiate with trousers.
The label gets a longer life
Mojix’s market extended beyond clothing to food, luxury, manufacturing and industrial users. Its ytem platform expanded into food traceability in 2021. The underlying appeal was similar: associate a particular item with a history, then use that history to manage stock, freshness or movement.
The business model was enterprise software subscriptions, supported by deployment partners. Its expertise sat between data capture and business decisions. A reader supplier could collect identities; an ERP system could hold records. Mojix’s proposition was to connect the events in between.
It operates in a crowded market. Nedap’s iD Cloud and Sensormatic’s inventory products also offer RFID inventory visibility. Mojix’s current place within BarTender gives buyers a particular proposition to examine: labeling and tracking from the same software family. Buyers should compare receiving, counting and fulfillment on their own merchandise, using the same tasks and measures for each demonstration.
Peak Rock Capital acquired Mojix in 2022. In October 2024, Mojix combined with Seagull Software, the developer of BarTender labeling software. CodeRoad separately announced its carve-out that month, so the older staff-augmentation description belongs to a different business chapter.
Today, Mojix’s website directs visitors to BarTender Track & Trace. The combination’s logic is easy to follow: connect creating a product label with following the item that carries it. Current tools include receiving, cycle counting, picklists, location history and finding tagged objects.
Buy the workflow, then the equipment
For a buyer, the relevant cost is the whole deployment: subscriptions, labels, readers, integration and the work of changing routines. Current Track & Trace inquiries go through sales. A sensible request for a quote specifies sites, item volumes, existing systems and how often employees will capture movements.
Ask who will encode the tags, resolve duplicate records and reconcile sales. Include training and support in the proposal. These tasks determine whether the subscription produces dependable information or merely another screen for employees to check.
The following is an editorial buying rule: select one troublesome process, measure it before installation, and repeat the measurement afterward. Count minutes spent searching, discrepancies per count and receiving exceptions. Compare the proposed system with the barcode workflow or inventory platform you already use.
This approach is less useful when items cannot be identified consistently, movement data goes uncaptured, or nobody acts on exceptions. A small operation with reliable barcode routines may have little to gain from added infrastructure. The question to bring to a demonstration is specific: show how my employee finds the missing shirt.