RFID Journal - Wal-Mart Details RFID Requirement

“Wal-Mart called the meeting to inform its top 100 suppliers—representatives from about 120 top companies came—about what exactly would required of them come January 2005, when Wal-Mart wants to begin tracking items using EPCs. Senior executives met with representatives from the suppliers’ companies on Nov. 4 for most of the day. Dillman address the vendors in the evening. The following day, suppliers were able to visit booths set up by the vendors. ”

RFID Journal - How to Manage All That RFID Data

“A Forrester analyst says the answer is to determine when you need real-time data by looking at your critical business processes.”

The Chinese Ministry of Education has awarded a deal to Beijing Global Card Technology Centre for the supply of more than 8 million PicoTag smart labels (manufactured by INSIDE Contactless) for use in a contactless identification and railway discount card scheme for college and university students.

Matthews Intelligent Identification - RFID technology promise unfulfilled: expert

“Manufacturers receive no benefit from the technology and yet they bear most of the implementation and ongoing application costs, which are substantial. “Considering the fact that RFID will face the same supply chain issues, why do we feel the adoption of RFID technology will be any different?” Fox, listed several issues he said the supply chain needed to address in implementing RFID including tag verification and yields, tag placement and application, data confirmation and tag failure.”

The article raises an interesting question: What can we learn from barcodes?  

RFID Journal - DOD Seeks RFID Interoperability

“For the past four years, the Auto-ID Center and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have been working on separate RFID standards. End users of RFID technology believe there would be significant benefits if the two standards merged or were at least interoperable. … Some industry observers made much of the fact that the DOD’s recent memo outlining its RFID strategy stressed that it wanted to use EPC technology while being ISO-compliant (see U.S. Military Clarifies RFID Mandate). The military hopes those two goals will not be mutually exclusive. Coyle says the DOD would like to play, and has been encouraged to play, an active role in both organizations to help make that possible.”

I spent last week in Europe attending conferences and meeting with industry representatives from a host of card and technology companies. At home I carry my drivers license with me everywhere, but abroad it is the passport that never leaves my possession. This seems a fitting parallel to the past year–a year that began with a focus on drivers license and national ID technology but has seen industry attention shifting to passports and travel documents.

When conversation turns to the topic of biometrics, of late the initials ICAO are frequently a part of the discussion. ICAO stands for “International Civil Aviation Organization” and has been around since the 1920s. It is a United Nations chartered body responsible for the establishment of standards for international travel documents.

“The world is prepared to sacrifice some of its personal liberties for better world security,” GENERAL JOHN WATKINS, CIO, FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTORS

Electro-Com - The five cent fallacy

“The five cent tag is regarded as the key to bringing RFID technology to mass applications. But the only way to meet this price is volume orders demanding billions of tags. Unfortunately, to date no such application exists. Even when there was talk of the airline industry using RFID tags as baggage labels, the industry’s best price was 29 cents a tag. The airlines baulked at the price, according to Chester Lennard, managing director of Electro-Com, which distributes Texas Instruments’ RFID products in Australia. “There’s a lot of talk about five cent tags but it’s all hype, and the people talking it up have obviously never made tags,” Lennard claims. “The five cent tags have been [discussed for] for 10 to 15 years and we’re still no closer to them, simply because it’s impossible to manufacture tags for that sort of money, no matter what the volumes are. The silicon alone costs more than that, so there’s no way you can sell a complete tag to the end user for five cents.””

Must read article at Electronics News.  

An article in eWEEK takes a closer look at last week’s announcement by the Department of Defense of its plans to deploy RFID tags throughout its supply chain by January of 2005. Balancing coverage with cost is a major issue and is likely to force a gradual implementation, though the eventual aim is to track equipment on an individual basis.

Looking at the same topic from a different angle, The Register shared some reader reponses to last week’s DoD announcement. The most common concern focused on security: any information that’s made available to military personnel using RFID shouldn’t be too hard for the enemy to acquire as well.

On the other hand, a letter to The Register from a former Army employee details the true potential of this kind of solution: monitoring supplies, tying those supplies to specific manufacturers, and keeping track of equipment while it’s en route, are all key benefits that apply particularly well to the immediate needs of the DoD.