- Radio frequency identification technology (RFID) is beginning
to revolutionize the way business is done. Already, the U.S. Department
of Defense and Wal-Mart are requiring their top suppliers to have RFID
technology implemented in their supply chains by January 1, 2005. As more
manufacturers of RFID tags, readers and software solutions enter the market,
the price of implementing the technology will continue to decline.
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- The technology, first invented by Harry Stockman with
the publishing of his 1948 report "Communication by Means of Reflected
Power," has only in the last few years become viable. As time passes,
however, nearly every Fortune 500 company will join the DoD and Wal-Mart
in employing the technology, making it an essential factor in almost any
business.
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- The key feature of the technology is the ability for
an RFID-tagged object to be tracked instantly from anywhere in the world,
provided that a reader is in range. The main application for this today
is tracking products along a supply chain. Everyone in the RFID-enabled
supply chain, from the manufacturers at the factory to the inventory trackers
at the retail location, has the ability to instantly call up the location,
condition, and supply of a particular product. Industry professionals expect
the RFID tag to eventually replace the barcode as the identification system
of choice. And there are several reasons why this should eventually happen.
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- First, however, it is important to understand how the
technology works. There are two types of RFID tags. An active tag uses
its own battery power to contact the reader. It works over a greater distance
than passive tags, but its larger size is its main drawback. On the other
hand, a passive tag does not require a battery. Rather, a passive tag derives
its power from the electromagnetic field created by the signal from the
RFID reader. This generates enough power for the tag to respond to the
reader with its information. While the range is smaller than active tags,
having no need for a battery makes the passive tagís life virtually
unlimited and its size potentially minute.
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- In contrast to the barcode, RFID tags can be read from
a larger distance, up to nine meters with some readers. Also, unlike optical
barcode scanners, the RFID chip can be read from a reader not in its line
of sight. For instance, cargo within a truck does not need to be unloaded
to be scanned by an RFID reader, as the radio waves can penetrate the walls
of the truck. The truck example brings up another intriguing feature of
the technology. While a barcode needs to scan products one at a time, an
RFID reader can read hundreds of chips virtually instantaneously, speeding
up the loading and delivery processes.
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- Furthermore, some RFID tags contain other sensors that
can transmit valuable data to managers. For example, a manager shipping
a refrigerated product may like to know if the temperature increases too
much along a supply chain route. With thermometer readings being transmitted,
this is possible.
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- Other features of RFID technology have caught the attention
of privacy advocates. It has been acknowledged that RFID technology can
be used for marketing purposes or even, in a Brave New World scenario,
government tracking of its citizens. For instance, it is possible to ubiquitously
embed the chip within a product, for instance a pair of jeans or a set
of automobile tires. What is most frightening, however, is the ability
to implant an RFID chip under the human skin.
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- If the tag is able to remain active after purchase of
a product, this could potentially enable marketers with the ability to
track information about the product after it leaves the store. For human
tracking, sub-dermal RFID chips are already being offered. Of course, the
human implant is more than just a tracking device. Credit card and other
personal information can be stored on the chip and transmitted to a reader
to pay for goods in a supermarket or gain access to personnel-restricted
high security areas.
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- More practical uses of RFID tags have emerged as well:
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- -- In the pharmaceutical industry, RFID tags on drug
bottles are being used as anti-counterfeiting devices.
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- -- Pet owners have begun implanting their cats and dogs
with RFID chips to locate them should they become lost.
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- -- In libraries, books are being tagged for self-automated
checkout, freeing up librarians to perform other tasks. This also allows
a librarian to easily locate a book misplaced on the wrong shelf.
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- -- The USDA is pushing to give every cow in the United
States its own unique identification number, making it easier to track
diseases, such as mad cow disease, back to the originating farm.
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- Due to the lack of industry standards regarding the use
of personal information that could be encoded on the chips, many privacy
advocates have called on companies to state their intended use of the technology.
Recently, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse called on the Federal Trade
Commission to regulate the use of RFID. As of yet, however, no federal
agency has come forth to regulate the usage of the technology.
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- Technical standardization will bring the cost of RFID
down drastically. EPCglobal Inc., which has taken over for the MIT Auto
ID Center, is the non-profit organization that is working to standardize
electronic product codes and RFID technology.
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- The EPCglobal Network uses RFID to enable true visibility
of objects in the supply chain. The network has five fundamental elements:
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- 1. The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a unique number
that identifies an item in the supply chain, whether that be an individual
product or a case, or pallet, of many products being shipped. 2. Each silicon
chip of each RFID tag is encoded with a unique EPC that identifies the
product. The silicon chip is wired to an antenna, and, using radio frequency
identification technology, each tag communicates to an RFID reader its
EPC. 3. The Object Name Service (ONS) collects the EPC that is passed on
from the reader. The ONS resides on a computer or local application system.
It tells the computer systems where to locate information on the network
about the item whose EPC it has just encountered. This information will
typically reside on the Internet, making it readily available on a worldwide
level. 4. Physical Markup Language (PML) is an XML-based language that
is used to define data on objects. 5. Savant is the middleware technology
that coordinates the movement of information over the computer systems.
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