Radio Frequency Identification

The Business Case for RFID

Radio Frequency Identification is far from new . The earliest traces of RFID could be traced back to World War II in the form of Identify Friend or Foe systems . Even with its nearly sixty years of history , RFID has emerged in recent years as one technology that has the potential to become disruptive in the same way that computers and the internet has transformed life , society and business . This will examine why this is so and will try to answer how RFID will impact business . The will

ask why RFID has had an emergence in recent years , the drivers for its development , the forces for its adoption and the roadblocks to its success

RFID Technology

At its most basic , RFID can be imagined as a replacement for barcode technology . While barcodes are read by a laser beam shining onto a barcode pattern , RFID tags are read using radio waves . The implication is that to read an object tagged with RFID , there is no need for line of sight . Additionally , many RFID items can be read at the same time

The basic RFID system hardware consists of two parts : the interrogator and the tag . The tag is composed of a microchip and an antenna and is to objects to be tracked by the RFID system . RFID tags can be battery powered or not , obtaining all their energy from the electromagnetic field emitted by the interrogator . The former are referred to as active tags while the latter are referred to as passive tags . The microchip in the RFID tag contains information about the object it is tagging , usually involving an EPC (Electronic Product Code number , similar to a UPC . Aside from the EPC , the microchip can carry other information like the product 's name , expiry date , manufacturing source , time in inventory and other pieces of information which the RFID system operator might desire to see (Gunther , Kubach and Kletti , 2008

The interrogator is responsible for gathering information from the tags A single interrogator can only read tags within a limited range - this would be the interrogator 's area of coverage . Moreover , in practical RFID systems , there are usually more than one interrogator deployments Interrogators could be placed in points of sale , in warehouse entry and exit points , along baggage handling routes , and in forklifts . Aside from having multiple deployments , these interrogators are usually connected to some form of IT infrastructure . It is this IT backend which is responsible for enabling the features of the RFID System (Gunther Kubach and Kletti , 2008

RFID Business Applications

It was previously mentioned that RFID acts as a wireless barcode . An RFID tag acts like a barcode which does not need line of sight , like a barcode which , together with all other barcodes in its pallet , can be read simultaneously

One immediate application of RFID would clearly be retail . Primitive RFID systems have been used to prevent theft in stores . With this modern RFID technology , RFID tags and readers...