Benefits And Challenges Of Using Rfid And Will Touch Upon...

1. Introduction Since its inception in 1980s, RFID received its first major public appearance in the popular media on July 11 2003, when Walmart Stores announced that it required its top 100 suppliers to affix Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags on all delivery cases and pallets by 1 Jan 2005 (Tirschwell, 2003). Wal-Mart began receiving RFID tagged delivery cases and pallets on April 30, 2004 (Roberti, 2004). Since then RFID has been explored and implemented intensively in Walmart and other industries such as medical care, asset tracking, warehouse management and retail. Pretty soon, it will be accepted more widely and will impact positively on role and importance of supply chain management. This report will closely evaluate the†¦show more content†¦Barcodes RFID Line Of Sight (LOS) required(Unidirectional) LOS not required(Omnidirectional) Product code is mentioned Item code is mentioned. Other details can be changed Uses Universal Product Code Uses Electronic Product Code Data stored is fixed Data stored can be changed Dirt can act as obstruction in LOS As no dedicated frequency assigned, interference is possible Manual help required for tracking and adds significant delay Automatic tracking by use of reader One reading at a time multiple readings at a time 2D barcode and thus minimal in size but easily destructible Physical 3D presence, size reduction is still ongoing, much more robust 4. Supply Chain Defined: It is a network of organizations that collaborate and carry out the processes of transport and storage of inventory and information from source to end user on time. Some important parameters for performance evaluation are Cycle Time, Lead Time and waste such as time in queue and these can be improved by implementing RFID technology as RFID can do the scanning of multiple items in a single reading due to its omni-directional nature with a single press of a button. Whereas for using barcode, scanning if items is done one item at a time and needs line of sight and hence human intervention. Thus the efficiency of supply chain can be improved by replacing barcode with RFID. 5. Benefits of RFID implementation in Supply Chain Management RFID