Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

Technology that touches the lives of many people in a surprising number of ways.

Briefly, RFID consists of an IC chip-often not much larger than the size of a pin's head-that can be programmed with many bits of data and attached to a mini antenna. This device can be activated by an electromagnetic field that initiates a process of transmitting the bits of data stored in the chip to a nearby receiving antenna, which is in-turn relayed to backend computing systems.

As you can imagine, the applications are endless: medicine, manufacturing, security, retailing, logistics, transportation and much more. Particularly in supply-chain environments, RFID can be a highly effective technology for tracking the movements of inventories as it can reduce or eliminate the manual scanning of barcodes on merchandise. Because of the savings that can be realized with RFID, especially when large volumes of merchandise are being handled, several large retail and governmental organizations, most notably Wal-Mart, Target, and the U.S. Department of Defense, have begun to require the integration of RFID technologies from their suppliers.

The purpose of this booklet is to help you get a basic understanding of RFID in order to consider what might be involved in incorporating this technology into your organization's business processes.

A Brief History of RFID

RFID began in World War II when the Allies needed a way to determine that aircraft entering England from the English Channel were "the good guys." A radio frequency transponder was created called IFF (Identity Friend or Foe) that was attached to Allied aircraft. This device broadcast an appropriate response to an "interrogating" radio signal sent from installations on the coast of England, thus alerting defense crews on the ground that the aircraft was friendly. This same concept of electronic interrogation and response was adapted to integrated chips in the 1970's that could identify themselves to interrogating devices for use in animal identification, factory automation and military applications. Through the 1980's and 1990's as RFID technology became smaller and more cost effective, other uses quickly arose around transportation management and personnel access.

Common Applications of RFID
RFID technology is currently used for many purposes in a wide spectrum of industries:

Inventory and logistics management
As already mentioned, a potent force in this sector are the mandates from large retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Albertson's that will soon require suppliers to provide RFID tags that identify inventory at the pallet and case levels. This will allow these retailers to inventory pallet loads of merchandise instantly and without taking the pallet apart and scanning each case. Plus, there are many other potential savings once the technology is perfected; for example, instant inventories of entire warehouses, automatic triggering of restocks/reorders when products leave store shelves, instant tracking of recalled products, automatic routing of product to storage areas and picking lines, transmission of "put-away" locations to forklift operators, and more.

In the transportation logistics sector, larger RFID devices that contain multiple megabytes of information are commonly used to track shipping containers, semi-tractor/trailers, heavy machinery, and railroad cars. Tags can even be updated as needed to record information about maintenance history, environmental conditions and warranty work.

Service and warranty
Identification information such as serial number, purchase authentication, warranty, service-record and account history can all be written into RFID tags and securely placed on products. This greatly speeds the processing of items for warranty repair by instantly and verifiably showing date of manufacture, serial number, and history of any previous repairs. Because of the current cost of RFID, however, this typically only applies to high value items.

Manufacturing processes
Particularly with the manufacture of high value items, RFID can be a cost-effective way to ensure the proper routing of components and sub-assemblies in manufacturing workflows. For companies that do large scale manufacturing of expensive products, this technology can dramatically reduce assembly errors. Serial number information can be permanently written to tags and affixed to components and finished products in order to track inventories, and later, to identify products during shipping, warranty eligibility and service.

Security/access
It likely comes as no surprise that the security industry was an early adopter of RFID and continues to be a very large consumer of the technology. RFID chips are commonly embedded in identification badges and parking permits. Smart labels (RFID chips embedded inside bar code labels) are widely affixed to assets to track their whereabouts and deter theft. In overseas shipments, tags can be placed in locked shipping containers that identify the contents of the container. If the container is tampered with, the tag can automatically trigger an alarm.

A well-known access-related use of RFID is pre-paid toll tags, which allow vehicles to pass tollgates without stopping, while automatically debiting the motorist's account.

RFID is being embedded in wristbands at events and amusement parks to manage access to various areas within the facility. At medical facilities, RFID wristbands ensure Alzheimer patients don't accidentally leave secured areas, and that only authorized staff and family members are able to enter newborn care facilities.